If your input exactly matches your desired data definitions, you can use the entity and field definitions directly in the consolidation engine. In most cases, however, you will need to map between your source data and your data definitions. You can do most of this with entity mappings, but you may also need some field mappings, which are described in the next section.
Use the New button at the top of the definition library to create an entity mapping. Within the entity mapping, set the Target entity to the entity that you want to write to. You can then:
- Use the source entity reference to give the entity a different reference by which it is known in the source. This can be useful if there is more than one source of the data: using a different reference for each source allows you to map more than one source to the same target entity.
- Use the source fields to give fields different names. Add the fields from the target entity to the entity mapping, and use the Reference (# = key) field to give the fields different names. Remember also to identify which are the key fields.
- Use the Processing section to specify a different message reader or processor, or to add or override message retention period or file retention. You cannot switch off file retention set on the target entity.
- If this is a unique entity, it is possible to pick different fields for the unique identifier and sequence. You're not likely to need to do this.
These options will suffice for most mapping. In some cases, you may need to create mapping for individual fields, especially for link and children fields. This is explained in the next section.
Thje export options are fundamental to the target entity. and cannot be specified on the entity mapping.
If you want to create multiple similar entity mappings, you can select an entity mapping, rather than an entity, as the target entity. This will extend the definition of the selected mapping, but target the same entity.