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Connections

This page gathers useful information concerning the possible uses of connections, used by connectors in order to extract and/or fulfill data from/to external systems.

Connection Configuration​

A connector needs at least one connection which needs to be declared both in the XML configuration and in the appsettings.agent.json file to be used. The connection settings must be set in appsettings.agent.json > Connections > <connectionIdentifier>, where <connectionIdentifier> is the identifier specified for the connection in the XML configuration.

See more details about the XML configuration of a connection.

The information stored in the connection depends on the export and/or fulfill technologies used by the connection's package.

See connectors documentation for more information about the attributes for each connector.

Connection Tables​

A connection table represents the potential output of the connection's export task, when the connection's package allows export. The export process generates CSV files (our connection tables) whose names start with the connection's identifier. The files' suffixes depend on the connector. See connectors' documentation for more information about these suffixes.

The name of these files are used to specify the connection tables of the entity type mappings and entity association mappings, in order to link the connectors' properties to the source files and columns from the managed systems.

A connection table is used in the definition of an entity type as Source, while the available columns of the selected table are used for the mapping as Source Columns.

connectiontables_ui_v60

Refresh Schema​

A schema is a snapshot of the data structure (metadata) retrieved by a connection. It needs to be refreshed to enable the configuration of entity types and resource types.

Usercube refreshes a connection's schema:

  • after the connection creation;

  • when clicking on Refresh Schema on the connection's page: only the schema of the current connection is refreshed;

    Refresh Schema of One Connection

  • when clicking on Refresh all schemas on the connector's page: all schemas of the connector are refreshed.

    Refresh all Schemas

In the Connections frame, either the last successful schema update is indicated or an icon is shown if the refresh schema failed.

Failed Refresh Schemas

Some packages don't generate a schema. For these packages, the Refresh Schema button isn't displayed on the connection's page. On the connector's page, a connection without schema is indicated by the sentence "There is no schema for this connection".

No Schema

The connections' schemas must be refreshed before editing the connector's entity types via the UI, whether the connections were created via the UI or XML configuration. Otherwise, there will be no connection table available in the Source dropdown, so you will not be able to save anything.

Export/Fulfill Tasks and Resource Type Mappings​

Connections are given to ExportTasks through the Connection attribute, which is mandatory as the ExportTask needs this information to use the right technology and search the information in the appsettings.agent.json.

It can also be given to FulfillTasks the same way but must not be if the FulfillTask has TaskResourceTypes.

ResourceTypeMappings have the Connection attribute as well, which is mandatory. If a FulfillTask has TaskResourceTypes, it will use the given connections to provision the different ResourceTypes.

Secured Options​

A connection's parameters fall into two categories: regular or secured options.

The particularity of secured options is that, once set, they will never again be shown to users. Hence, extra care should be taken while specifying them.

There are several types of secured options: a simple field or multiple key-value fields.

See how to configure secured options.