Working with Model Display

The content of the MDM hub can be accessed by connecting to a given data edition, which is based on a deployed edition of the model.
When a user performs such an access, a web user interface is automatically generated for this user.

The default layout of this interface includes the entities of the model, displayed based on their display properties, and filtered by the model security. This chapter describes how to to define the display properties used when accessing the entities via the web interface.

Tip: To define specific a user or role specific access to the MDM hub content, including human workflows for managing the hub data, it is necessary to create an Application.

Introduction to Entities Display Properties

The display properties of the entities are defined as part of the model.
The Labels and Descriptions provided when creating and editing the entities, attributes, types and references are are used when displaying the entities of the model. For more information about these properties, see the Logical Modeling chapter.

Other artifacts specific to displaying a model can be defined in the model. They include the Entity Display Names, Complex Types Display Names, Attribute Groups and Localization, described in the following sections.

Entity Display Names

An entity is a structure containing several attributes (simple and complex). When an entity value needs to be displayed in a compact form (for example, in a table, or in a single field), the Display Name is used.

The display name defines how an entity is displayed in compact form. It is a concatenation of several attributes, separated by a Separator.
For example, a Contact entity is shown as <first name>˽<last name>.

To create or modify an entity display name:

  1. Right-click the entity node and select Define Display Name.... The Modify Display Name wizard opens.
  2. In the Modify Display Name wizard, enter the following values:
  3. Click Next.
  4. In the Display Name Attributes page, select the Available Attributes that you want to add and click the Add >> button to add them to the Selected Attributes.
  5. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to order the selected attributes.
  6. Click Finish to close the wizard.
  7. Press CTRL+S to save the Display Name editor.
  8. Close the editor.

Note: Only one display name can be created for a given entity.

Complex Type Display Name

A complex type is a structure containing several attributes. When a complex attribute value needs to be displayed in a compact form (for example, in a table, or in a single field), the Display Name is used.

The display name defines how a complex attribute is displayed in compact form. It is a concatenation of several definition attributes, separated by a Separator.
For example, the GeocodedAddress complex type contains a large number of attributes, from the simple StreetNumber down to the longitude and latitude. A display name would be for example: StreetNumber StreetName City Country .

To create or modify a complex attribute display name:

  1. Right-click the complex attribute node and select Define Display Name.... The Modify Display Name wizard opens.
  2. In the Modify Display Name wizard, enter the following values:
  3. Click Next.
  4. In the Display Name Attributes page, select the Available Attributes that you want to add and click the Add >> button to add them to the Selected Attributes.
  5. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to order the selected attributes.
  6. Click Finish to close the wizard.
  7. Press CTRL+S to save the Display Name editor.
  8. Close the editor.

Note: Only one display name can be created for a given complex type.

Attribute Groups

Attribute Groups define UI sections into which the attributes are shown.
For example, displaying a contact attributes in General, Phone Numbers, Addresses and Internet sections

To create an attribute group:

  1. Expand the entity node, select the Attribute Groups and select Add Attribute Group.... The Create New Attribute Group wizard opens.
  2. In the Create New Attribute Group wizard, enter the following values:
  3. Click Next.
  4. In the Group Attributes page, select the Available Attributes that you want to add and click the Add >> button to add them to the Selected Attributes.
  5. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to order the selected attributes.
  6. Click Finish to close the wizard.
  7. Press CTRL+S to save the Attribute Group editor.
  8. Close the editor.

Note: It is possible to have multiple attribute groups on a single entity. In addition, an attribute can be used in several attribute groups at the same time.

Attribute groups will appear as sections when viewing this entity’s data. It is possible to edit, order or delete attributes groups in an entity from the Attribute Groups list in the entity editor.

To order the attributes in an entity:

  1. Open the editor for the entity.
  2. Select the Attributes Groups item in the sidebar.
  3. Select an attribute group in the Attributes Groups list and use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to order this attribute group in the list. You can also click the Delete button to delete this attribute group.
  4. Press CTRL+S to save the editor.

Localization

When designing a model, labels, descriptions and other user-facing text strings are entered to provide a user-friendly experience. These strings are natively externalized in Semarchy Convergence for MDM, and can be translated (localized) in any language.

A user connecting an application created with Semarchy Convergence for MDM will see these strings (label of the entities, attributes, list of values, etc.) translated in the locale of his web browser if such translation is available. If no translation is available in his locale for a given text, the default string (for example, the label or description specified in the model) is used. These default strings are the base translation.

Warning: make sure to translate the entire model in a given language to avoid partially translated user interfaces.

Translation Bundles

Strings translation is performed using Translation Bundles, attached to model editions. A translation bundle is a properties file that contains a list of key/value pairs corresponding to the strings localized in a given locale. The translation bundle file is named translations_<locale>.properties, where is the locale of the translation.

The following example is a sample of a translation bundle file for the English language ( translations_en.properties). In this file, the label for the Employee entity is the string “Staff Member”, and its description is “A person who works for our company”.

...
Entity.Employee.Label=Staff Member
Entity.Employee.Description=A person who works for our company.
Attribute.Employee.FirstName.Label=First Name
Attribute.Employee.FirstName.Description=First name of the employee
Attribute.Employee.Picture.Label=<New Key TODO>
...

Translating a Model

To translate a model:

  1. The translation bundles are exported for the language(s) requiring translation in a single zip file.
  2. Each translation bundle is translated by a translator using his translation tooling.
  3. The translated bundles are re-imported into the model edition (either each file at a time, or as a single zip file).

To export translation bundles:

  1. In the Model Editions view ( Model Administration perspective), expand the model edition that you want to localize.
  2. Right-click and then select Export Translation Bundles.... The Export Translation Bundles wizard opens.
  3. Select the languages that you want to translate.
  4. Select Export Base Bundle if you also want to export the base bundle for reference. The base bundle contains the default strings, and cannot be translated.
  5. Select the Encoding for the exported bundles. Note that the encoding should be UTF-8 unless the language that you want to translate or the translation tooling has other encoding requirements.
  6. Select in Values to Export the export type:
  7. Select in Default Values the value to set for new keys (keys with no translation in the language).
  8. Click the link to download the translation bundles in a zip format and then Close to close the wizard.

To import translation bundles:

  1. In the Model Editions view ( Model Administration perspective), expand the model edition that you want to localize.
  2. Right-click and then select Import Translation Bundles.... The Import Translation Bundles wizard opens.
  3. Click the Open button and select the translation file to import. This file should be either a properties file named translations_<locale>.properties or a zip file containing several of these properties files.
  4. In the Language to Import table, select the language translations that you want to import.
  5. Select the Encoding for the import. Note that this encoding should correspond to the encoding of the properties files that you import.
  6. Select Cleanup Removed Keys During Import if you want to remove the translations for the keys that are no longer used in the model. This cleanup remove translation no longer used by the model.
  7. Click Finish to run the import.

The translations for the model edition in the selected languages are updated with those contained in the translation bundles. If the Cleanup Removed Keys During Import was selected, translations in these languages no longer used in the model are removed.

Translation and Model Edition Lifecycles

The lifecycle of the translations is entirely decoupled from the model edition and deployment lifecycle:

Tip: Decoupling the translation lifecycle from the model edition avoids binding the critical model development and release process to the translation process, as the latter frequently is managed by a separate team. This also allows adding new translations or fixing translations without having to re-deploy a new model edition.

Warning: When creating a new model edition, the translations from the previous model edition are not copied to the next edition. It is necessary to export and import translations between editions.