Studio basics

Studio provides an environment called a Workspace in which you can design and configure your integration projects. The Toolbox is the area next to the Workspace where multiple tabs contain components that you use to build an integration project; components such as endpoints, schemas, orchestrations, style sheets, transformation, WSDLs, activities, variables, and functions.

Toolbar icons

Directly under the Studio toolbar menu options are the following Studio toolbar icons:
  • New Project: New Project Create Project
  • Open Project: Open Project Opening a Project
  • Save Project: Save Project Saving a Project
  • Close Project: Close Project seeSaving a Project
  • Undo: Undo Allows you to undo previous actions.
  • Redo: Redo Allows you to redo previously undone actions.
  • Cut: Cut Removes an entity and saves a copy of the entity in the clipboard that can be used later by a paste action. For example, from an orchestration you can remove and store an activity to the clipboard. For more information, see Working with activities in an orchestration
  • Copy: Copy Saves a copy of the selected entity into the clipboard that can be used later by a paste action.
  • Paste: Paste Copy the stored entity from the clipboard.
  • Delete: Delete Removes the entity. The activity is not saved in the clipboard.
  • Validate Project: Validate Project Validates all the orchestrations in the project. If an orchestration is invalid the invalid orchestration icon Invalid Orchestration is displayed next to the orchestration in the Project tab. If the orchestration is invalid, click the orchestration to view the errors in the Validation Results window.
  • Publish Project: Publish Project Opens the Publishing a Project dialog box. From the Publish Project dialog box, you can publish a project to an Integration Appliance
  • Export Project: Export Project Opens the Save dialog box. From the Save dialog box, you can save all the orchestrations, endpoints, schemas, and other objects associated with the project, into a single file that ends in the .par extension.
  • Project Documentation Generation: Generates and saves project documentation as an HTML file.
  • Preferences: Preferences Opens the Preferences dialog box. You can specify Project, Orchestration, Flat File Properties, SSL/Kerberos, Session Login, and XML Schema preferences from the Preferences dialog box.
  • Help: Help Opens the Studio help. You can also connect to the WebSphere Cast Iron Community by selecting the option from the main Help menu.

Orchestrations and the Workspace

When you select an orchestration a tab view of the selected entities is displayed in the upper half of the Workspace. For example, if you double-click an orchestration in the Project tab, a graphic view of the orchestration is displayed as a tab. An orchestration or workflow contains the logical flow of your integration. Drag-and-drop activities from the Activity tab onto the orchestration to visually define the logical flow of your integration. For a list of other entities configurable from the top half of the Workspace, see the Project tab.

The lower half of the Workspace is where you define or configure the activities you added to the orchestration. It is referred to by different names, depending on what you are doing at the time. If you are creating a map, this area is called the Mapping Editor. If you are configuring endpoints or configuring an activity, it is referred to as the Properties pane.

Toolbox tabs

The Toolbox comprises five sideways-oriented tabs: Project, Activities, Variables, Functions, and Verify.
Note: You can make the Toolbox larger or smaller by moving the invisible slider between the Workspace and the Toolbox.

Project tab

The Project tab contains folders that store the basic entities that make up any integration project. These folders are initially empty. The Project tab contains the following folders:
Endpoints
Specifies the connection information required to connect to the various external systems. The Integration Appliance supports connecting to endpoints of many types including FTP, SFTP, HTTP, HTTPS, Email (SMTP, POP), SAP, MQ, Web Services, and many commercial database systems.
Flat File Schemas
Defines the content and structure of a Flat File. Flat Files are any non-XML text data, such as comma and tab-delimited files and EDI or industry-specific textual formats, such as the Health Level 7 (HL7) format for the healthcare industry.
Orchestrations
Contains a sequence of activities that performs a specific business process. Orchestrations are the central entity of any integration project.
Stylesheets
Defines how to transform XML data from one format to another. You can upload an XSLT Stylesheet into Studio and add an Apply XSLT activity to your orchestration that starts the XSLT Stylesheet during run time.
Transformations
Contains stand-alone maps that represents a set of one or more mappings between source and destination nodes.
WSDLs
A WSDL is an XML document that describes a Web Service. It defines how to access a Web Service and the operations available for the Web Service.
XML Schemas
Defines the content and structure of XML data. XML Schemas are typically stored in files that end with the .xsd extension. When you upload an XML Schema into a project, you can use that XML Schema to create variables used by the activities of an orchestration.
In addition, the following icons are provided:
  • New Orchestration: New Orchestration Click to create an Orchestration.
  • New Endpoint: New Endpoint Click to create an Endpoint.
  • New Flat File Schema: New Flat File Schema Click to create a new Flat File Schema.
  • New Standalone Map: New Standalone Map Click to create a Standalone map.
  • Add Document: Add Document Click to upload a file into the current project.
  • Revalidate Project: Revalidate Project Click to validate the orchestrations in the current project.
To view the entities that make up the Project tab as a list view:
  1. Select Edit > Preferences from the Studio toolbar menu. The Preferences dialog box displays.
  2. Select the Show the entities of the Project tab as a list check box.
To view and configure an existing entity in the Project tab, open an entity choose from one of the following options:
  • Double-click the entity in the Project tab
  • Select the entity in the Project tab and press Return.
The properties of the entity show in the Properties pane. Clicking an orchestration in the Project tab, validates the orchestration. If the orchestration is invalid, the orchestration warning icon is displayed Orchestration warning icon, and the Validation Results window opens next to the Project tab. Click the error message in the window to open the appropriate panel to fix the error.

To rename or delete an entity in the Project tab, right-click the entity and from the list select Rename or Delete.

To copy and paste an entity in the Project tab:
  1. Select an entity in one of the folders in the Project tab.
  2. To copy the entity, enter the key sequence:  CTRL+C.
  3. To paste the entity, enter the key sequence: CTRL+V. A copy of the entity displays in the Project tab.

To view the entities of the Project tab as a list, select the Show entities of the Project tab as a list check box in the Preferences pane of Studio. For more information, see Setting Preferences.

When the Project tab opens, a Dependencies pane shows by default in the Project tab. Selecting an entity in the Project tab shows the entities that are directly dependent on this entity in the project, which entities in the project would be incomplete if this entity was removed.

For example, if you had FTP endpoint that was used by the FTP Poll Directory and FTP Put File activities of the BatchOrder orchestration, clicking the FTP endpoint in the Project tab, displays the BatchOrder orchestration in the Dependencies pane because the endpoint is used by the orchestration. If you deleted the FTP endpoint, the BatchOrder orchestration would be incomplete. If you select the BatchOrder orchestration, you would not see the FTP endpoint listed in the Dependencies pane because you can delete the BatchOrder orchestration without affecting the FTP endpoint.

By default, the Dependencies pane appears underneath the Project tab. You can hide the Dependencies pane, by clearing the Show dependant project nodes check box for the Project in the Preferences pane. To view the preferences for a project, select Edit > Preferences from the toolbar menu and then select Project in the left pane. The preferences for the project display.

Activities tab

An activity performs a specific operation in an orchestration. Activities are organized into the following general categories on the Activities tab:
  • Transform
  • Logic
  • Utilities
  • Archives
  • Cryptoservice
  • Database
  • Data Quality
  • Domino
  • Email
  • Force.com Bulk API
  • FTP
  • HTTP
  • JDE
  • JMS
  • MQ
  • NetSuite
  • PeopleSoft
  • SAP
  • Salesforce.com
  • ServiceMax
  • Siebel
  • STS
  • Web Services
  • Workday

Variables tab

Variables are tools for orchestrations. They are used to bind data sources to orchestrations and pass or operate on data values as they pass through the orchestration. The Variables tab provides an area where you can create and edit variables.

Functions tab

Functions are tools used in the Mapping Editor. Use the tools to specify how to transform data as it passes through an orchestration. If the functions provided in the Functions tab do not meet your needs, you can create your own custom functions.

Memory usage and garbage collection

If the Show memory usage in status bar option is selected in the Preference dialog box, a memory bar and trash can icon is displayed as shown in the following figure. This memory bar displays how much memory is currently used by Studio, compared to the total memory that is currently allocated to Studio (520 MBytes) from the Operating System, as shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1. Memory usageMemory Usage

To request that Studio attempt garbage collection, reclaiming any unused memory inside of Studio, click the trash can icon located to the right of the memory bar. Clicking the garbage collection trash can icon might reduce the amount of memory Studio is currently using internally, potentially increasing the performance of Studio when working with a large project. Clicking the garbage collection trash can does not reduce the memory used by Studio from the operating system, the size of this memory remains constant to the 520 MBytes size initially allocated to Studio.

Entity tabs

To manage the Entities tabs: in the upper half of the Workspace, the entities selected from Project tab are displayed as tabs (for example: Orchestrations and Endpoints). You can manage these tabs by right-clicking a tab and selecting the appropriate action from the menu:
  • Close: Close the tab that you right-clicked on to open the menu.
  • Close Other Tabs: Close all the open entity tabs except the entity tab that you right-clicked to open the menu.
  • Close All Tabs: Closes all the entity tabs currently open.
  • Close All But Current Tab: Close all the open entity tabs except the entity tab that is currently selected.

To navigate to hidden entity tabs, when many entitles have been opened from the Project tab, the hidden tabs icon Hidden Tab Icon is displayed as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Hidden TabHidden Tab Figure

To access the hidden entity tabs, click the hidden tabs icon Hidden Tab Icon. A list of all the currently opened tabs is displayed. Select one of the tabs from the menu.

Parent topic: Working with projects


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Timestamp icon Last updated: Wednesday, 15 June 2016


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