Import Definitions allow you to specify sequential steps to import sets of data in one process. You can create import definitions to automate processes, for integration with different 3rd party systems, and even for testing functionality on different releases. This ensures you have the tools to remove as much of the manual pain points of data integration, migration and implementation as possible.
Import Definition Features
Import Definitions provide the tools for creating a sequence of steps to move through while importing data. Each import step has all the functionality of our Importing routines combined with more save context options, and additional data sources. Import Definitions are used within 3 main contexts:
Creating import routines for integrating a 3rd party system into the LemonEdge platform to automate importing data on a regular basis
Create import routines for running calculations, algorithms and custom processes. Our Importing functionality has the ability to run custom processes as well as just import data providing a range of options for import definition uses.
Create testing routines that can run a test suite of data and calculation imports to build a test model which can be compared with existing ones.
The powerful functionality in Import Definitions can be used to answer a wide range of issues, not just the above main 3. This feature set provides additional functionality above and beyond the normal import routines of legacy systems to ensure you can automate as much as possible of your data integration requirements.
Import Definition Properties
Import Definitions have the following properties:
Name
Description
[Key] [Required] Name
Unique user friendly name for this import definition
Description
User friendly description of what this import definition does
Storage Type
Indicates the storage type to use for the import definition to access and poll for files. System comes with:
Local
Azure
But you can add more by implementing the LemonEdge.API.Storage.IStorageManager interface [See our API].
Storage Base Path
The base path to use for the Storage Type. For example using Local may be LemonEdgeFiles
Storage Connection String
The connection string for the storage type. For Azure this would be a connection string, for Local it can just be the drive, or network, name: C:\
Commands
An Import Definition has the standard set of commands and functions when being viewed from a grid. See our standard grid functionality.
Import Definitions can be exported and imported as packaged xml files to transfer configuration across systems. Again this is available from the standards grid commands.
When opened the Import Definition view has the following custom commands:
Execute Import Definition: This will execute the current import definition and start the process as a task to be run by the task servers. The system will report the progress of the task to you [more info], but you can always view it from Server Tasks too. The import definition will sequentially progress through each step [more info] set to Enabled, and report any errors it encounters along the way.
