USER MANUALS

Personalization

From the Personalization dialog you can configure the aspect of the Data Catalog and the available features in its interface. It is organized in the following tabs:

  • Elements. The features related to the elements of the catalog are configured here.

  • Information. In this tab, you will find the features related to the information of the catalog.

  • Export. In this tab you configure which options are available to export the results of a query.

  • Connection. From this tab you can customize the connection URLs and decide where to show them.

  • Usage statistics. You can enable the usage statistics in this tab and which options are available.

  • Theme. You will find here a dialog to redefine the visual aspect of the Data Catalog.

Elements

In the Search and browse section you configure the following settings:

  • Select the elements that will be shown to the users. You can specify if the users only have access to views, to web services or to both of them. In addition to searching and browsing, this setting will affect the home page and the saved queries.

  • Choose how the elements will be displayed by default. Select the display mode of the elements by default: list or grid.

  • Allow users to browse by Databases/Folders. If disabled, the Browse menu will not show the Databases / Folders option.

  • Show only views and web services belonging to any category. In case the browsing by database and folders is disabled, you can decide if the Data Catalog will show all elements in the server when searching or browsing, or only those elements with a category.

  • Show the elements belonging to the selected category or any of its subcategories. If enabled, the search in Browse > Categories will show the elements belonging to the categories selected or its subcategories.

  • Allow logical names for view fields. If enabled, users will see the logical field name column in the views Schema tab. In addition, users will be able to search views containing certain logical field names in metadata search when the search filter Field name is applied.

Search and browse section in the Elements tab

Search and browse section in the Elements tab

In the Queries section you can configure the following settings:

  • Allow saving queries (show “My queries” menu). If disabled, users are not allowed to save queries, and the My queries menu will not be shown.

  • Show generic error messages. If enabled, you can configure the generic error message to be shown when an error occurs while users execute or export queries.

  • Allow copy results to clipboard. If disabled, users are not allowed to copy the displayed query results to the clipboard in the VQL Shell.

Queries section in the Elements tab

Queries section in the Elements tab

In the HTML section, with the Enable HTML descriptions and properties you decide if HTML is supported in descriptions for databases, views, web services, categories or tags; and if a property group supports HTML type properties. If disabled:

  • Element descriptions will always be displayed as plain text,

  • Existing HTML type properties will be converted to type Long text, and

  • Property groups will not allow to create properties of type HTML.

HTML section in the Elements tab

HTML section in the Elements tab

Information

In the Informative message section you can configure an informative message that will be displayed to users as a modal pop-up before they log in the Data Catalog. It can be used to display a welcome message, inform users when the service is expected to be down for maintenance, legal disclaimers, etc.

Informative message shown before a user logs in the Data Catalog

Informative message shown before a user logs in the Data Catalog

In the editor you can enter plain text or HTML text with the help of the toolbar. Use the code icon in the toolbar to enter HTML code in the editor.

Dialog to configure the informative message

Dialog to configure the informative message

In the Others section, with the Enable community resources you decide if the related documentation resources will be displayed in the modal pop-up when the documentation icon is clicked. If disabled, only the documentation link will be displayed.

Others section in the Information tab

Others section in the Information tab

Export

In the General section you can configure the following settings about the exportation of the query results of views and web services:

  • The available export formats, between CSV, HTML, Excel, Tableau (.tde) and Tableau (.hyper). By default, all formats are enabled.

    See also

    The section Enabling Exports to Tableau explains how to configure the Denodo Platform to enable the exports to Tableau.

  • If only users with the data_catalog_exporter role in Virtual DataPort can export the results of the queries using each of the available exporters.

  • If Data Catalog should generate these files with a header by default. This setting only applies to CSV, HTML and Excel files. Exporting to Tableau (.tde) and Tableau (.hyper) always include the header.

  • Data Catalog allows BOM configurable for exported query CSV file.

  • The maximum number of rows that will be exported using each of the available formats. First, you need to check the Limit maximum number of rows to export option and then provide a value in the corresponding Maximum numbers of rows field.

  • The field delimiter character used when exporting to a CSV file. You can choose between Comma, Pipeline, Semicolon, Space and Tab; or click the edit button and enter a user-defined delimiter character.

    Note

    The double quote character (") cannot be set as a delimiter character.

General section in the Export tab

General section in the Export tab

In the Excel section you can configure how numeric and date values are exported to Excel. The following settings can be configured:

  • Export numbers as. Choose the Excel format that should be used to export numeric values between the options:

    • General

    • Number. If you choose this option, you should specify in the field Number of decimals how many decimals will be displayed in the cell for decimal values.

    • Text

    Note

    If you export numbers with General or Number formats, Excel will only store the 15 most significant figures. If you want to preserve all figures, you should export them as Text.

  • Date pattern. The pattern to be applied to values of type localdate if results are not internationalized or if you choose an i18n map not defining a value for the field datesubtypepattern.

  • Time pattern. The pattern to be applied to values of type time if results are not internationalized or if you choose an i18n map not defining a value for the field timesubtypepattern.

  • Timestamp pattern. The pattern to be applied to values of type timestamp if results are not internationalized or if you choose an i18n map not defining a value for the field datepattern.

Note

The syntax used in date, time and timestamp patterns is the same as the Java date patterns detailed in the section Date and Time Pattern Strings.

Excel section in the Export tab

Excel section in the Export tab

Enabling Exports to Tableau

To enable the feature of exporting data to Tableau, you need to install the Tableau Data Extract API (for .tde format) or Extract API 2.0 (for .hyper format) in the host where the Denodo Platform is installed.

To configure Tableau libraries, follow these steps:

  1. Go to the directory <DENODO_HOME>/resources/data-catalog/tableau.

  2. Extract the content of the compressed file in the Tableau_Data_Extract_API folder to configure Tableau Data Extract API or in the Extract_API_2.0 folder to configure Extract API 2.0.

  3. If the Denodo server runs on Windows, copy the files from the recently decompressed bin folder to <DENODO_HOME>/jre/bin.

  4. If the Denodo server runs on Linux:

    1. Copy all the .so files from lib64/dataextract (for .tde format) or lib64/tableausdk (for .hyper format) in the decompressed folder to <DENODO_HOME>/jre/bin. Remember to verify that the files just copied have the necessary permissions.

    2. Copy the files from bin (for .tde format) or bin/hyper (for .hyper format) in the decompressed folder to <DENODO_HOME>/jre/bin.

  5. Restart the Data Catalog.

Important

According to your specific Linux distribution, you should follow the next considerations:

  • Red Hat and Ubuntu distributions. It is necessary to copy all the .so files mentioned in section 4.1 to /lib directory of the Linux root folder with the appropriate permissions.

  • CentOS distributions. It is necessary to copy all the .so files mentioned in section 4.1 to /lib64 directory of the Linux root folder with the appropriate permissions.

It is necessary to have the libncurses5 library installed, so it is recommended to check if this library is installed on the system. If a later version of this library is installed, it is necessary to make a symbolic link like the one indicated below since the Tableau libraries need that specific version to work.

ln -s libtinfo.so.<version> libtinfo.so.5

(e.g. If the installed library is libncurses6 then the command to use would be ln -s libtinfo.so.6 libtinfo.so.5)

Take into account that there is a limitation in Linux environments that prevents the Tableau libraries for both formats from being installed at the same time. In these environments it is only allowed to configure libraries for one format (.tde or .hyper) in Data Catalog.

Connection

You can choose whether to display the Connection URLs button or not in the Summary tab of databases, views and web services. If you choose to show it, you can customize several parameters:

  • Introduction text of the connections panel. This value will be shown in the panel instead of the default introduction.

  • URL patterns. These values describe how to access the databases and views of the server through JDBC, ODBC, REST, OData and GraphQL; and the URL for accessing web services. You may use the following variables in the pattern definitions: $protocol, $vdp_host, $vdp_port, $odbc_port, $webcontainer_port, $user_name, $database_name and $view_name. These variables will be replaced by the appropriate values when showing the URLs to the user.

Dialog to configure the connection URLs for databases, views and web services

Dialog to configure the connection URLs for databases, views and web services

In the External Tools section you can configure the integration with third-party applications.

  • Power BI. Enable this option to show the Power BI button in the Summary tab of views, which generates a data source file to query the view from Power BI.

    • DSN. By default, a DSN-less connection string with the data of the server the user is connected to in the Data Catalog is used. It is also possible to specify a custom DSN or a DSN-less connection string. For details about the DSN-less connection string format go to Denodo Power BI Custom Connector.

Dialog to configure the integration with Power BI

Dialog to configure the integration with Power BI

  • Tableau. Enable this option to show the Tableau button in the Summary tab of views, which generates a data source to query the view from Tableau.

    • Connector. The connector to use to create the connection. Denodo, that uses ODBC, or Denodo JDBC.

    • Connection. Parameters needed to create the connection. By default, the data of the server the user is connected to in the Data Catalog is used. It is also possible to specify different values by selecting Use custom connection parameters.

    • JDBC connection parameters. Additional connection parameters. Only for the Denodo JDBC connector.

Dialog to configure the integration with Tableau

Dialog to configure the integration with Tableau

Usage Statistics

Virtual DataPort produces metadata on every query it processes like how long it takes to execute, how many rows it returns, who executes it, from which application, etc. Data Catalog can analyze this metadata and show a set of statistics that summarizes how views and web services are queried. When this feature is enabled, the details page for views and web services includes a new tab called Usage with this information.

To enable this feature you must perform some preparation steps:

  1. Configure the Denodo Monitor to store the requests log in a database.

  2. Configure Virtual DataPort to read, process and cache the requests data from database.

  3. Enable usage statistics in Data Catalog.

  4. Compute usage statistics.

Important

Denodo Monitor and Virtual DataPort must be configured with the same time zone so the cache works properly.

Let us see in more detail each one of the preparation steps.

Configure the Denodo Monitor to store the requests log in a database

By default Denodo Monitor saves monitoring data to a set of files. Follow the steps below to configure Denodo Monitor to store requests data in a database:

  1. Edit the file <DENODO_MONITOR_HOME>/conf/ConfigurationParameters.properties.

  2. Search for the text

    # ================================================================================
# Settings to store the output of the Virtual DataPort query monitor in a database
# ================================================================================

  3. Follow the instructions below the text.

In the page Configuring the Denodo Monitor you have more information on how to manually configure the Denodo Monitor.

As an alternative, you can configure the Denodo Monitor from the Solution Manager. Take into account that a view or web service may exist on several environments at the same time. According to your preferences on how Data Catalog should compute usage statistics, you must configure the Denodo Monitor in one of the following ways:

  • If you want Data Catalog to compute usage statistics globally, the requests of all your environments must be stored in the same table. For that purpose it is enough to define the global monitoring configuration in Solution Manager.

  • If you want to separate out usage statistics by environment, the requests of each environment must be stored in a different table. Therefore, you need a specific monitoring configuration for each environment pointing to a different table.

Configure Virtual DataPort to read, process and cache the requests data from database

Next you have to configure Virtual DataPort to read the requests data from database, process it and be able to cache the results in an incremental way. Follow the steps below:

  1. Enable the cache engine of Virtual DataPort.

  2. Create a database called denodo_logs. You can use another name if you want, but take into account that if you configure Scheduler to automatically compute usage statistics later on, you will have to modify the URL of the Virtual DataPort data source to point to the correct database.

  3. Create a JDBC data source pointing to the database where the Denodo Monitor stores the requests data.

  4. Create a base view over the request_notification table of the data source you just created. It is important that you do not modify the name of the view or the fields in its schema.

  5. Import the file <DENODO_HOME>/resources/data-catalog/statistics/usage_statistics.vql into denodo_logs database. This will create the usage_statistics_src view configured with full cache, which is the view used by Data Catalog to compute usage statistics.

  6. Download the Denodo Incremental Cache Load stored procedure from the Denodo support site and import it in the denodo_logs database of Virtual DataPort with the name incremental_cache_load. This step is optional, although highly recommended as it enables the incremental load of the cache, improving the performance of the queries that compute the usage statistics.

Note

Due to license restrictions, you cannot use the Virtual DataPort server included in the Solution Manager.

Enable usage statistics in Data Catalog

From the Usage Statistics tab of the Personalization dialog you must proceed as follows:

  1. Enable this feature using the toggle Enable usage statistics.

  2. Select all the periods for which to compute usage statistics: Previous day, Previous 30 days or All time.

  3. Select if you want to compute the most frequent values for User, User Agent (Applications) or Query.

  4. Configure the connection details to the Virtual DataPort that contains the usage_statistics_src view:

    • Connection URL. The connection URL of the Virtual DataPort server, which follows the pattern //<host>:<port>/<database>.

    • Login and Password. The credentials of the user. Take into account that this user must have enough privileges to connect to Virtual DataPort and execute the usage_statistics_src view.

    • Database. The database that contains the usage_statistics_src view. You only need to enter a value if this database is different from the database in the Connection URL.

    • View name. The view with the processed information on requests. By default it is usage_statistics_src. You only need to enter a value if you have changed its default name.

  5. Click the Save button to apply the configuration.

Dialog to configure the usage statistics

Dialog to configure the usage statistics

Compute usage statistics

At this point, you are ready to compute usage statistics so Data Catalog can display them in the Usage tab of views and web services. Just click the Compute usage statistics button. This process incrementally caches the data in the usage_statistics_src view and then computes usage statistics for each element in the catalog mentioned in the queries.

You can manually compute usage statistics whenever you want. However, our recommendation to keep them up to date is to run this process regularly using Scheduler, specially if there are several Virtual DataPort servers registered in Data Catalog. To do this, follow the steps below:

  1. Edit the file <DENODO_HOME>/resources/data-catalog/statistics/compute_usage_statistics_api.properties as follows:

    • Adapt the value of the property ending in data_catalog_api_no_authentication.ROUTE.HTTP.URL so it points to your Data Catalog.

    • Adapt the value of the property ending in data_catalog_api_vdp_authentication.ROUTE.HTTP.URL so it points to your Data Catalog.

    • Enter the credentials of the user that is going to run the process to compute the usage statistics in the properties ending in data_catalog_api_vdp_authentication.ROUTE.HTTP.USER and data_catalog_api_vdp_authentication.ROUTE.HTTP.PASSWORD. By default the password must be unencrypted. To enter it encrypted, proceed as follows:

      • Obtain the encrypted value for properties file. For the password my_password you must execute in Virtual DataPort the command:

        ENCRYPT_PASSWORD 'my_password' FOR_PROPERTIES_FILE

      • Enter the result in the property ending in data_catalog_api_vdp_authentication.ROUTE.HTTP.PASSWORD.

      • Enter the value ENCRYPTED in the property ending in data_catalog_api_vdp_authentication.ROUTE.HTTP.PASSWORD.ENCRYPTED.

  2. Import the file <DENODO_HOME>/resources/data-catalog/statistics/compute_usage_statistics_api.vql with the properties file you just edited in the denodo_logs database of Virtual DataPort. This will create the compute_usage_statistics_all_servers view, which runs the compute usage statistics process for all Virtual DataPort servers registered in Data Catalog. This view produces a row for each server and a status column with the OK value if the process succeeded. Take into account that the same credentials are used to run this process on each server, so there are some requirements that must be met for the process to be successful:

    • The usage statistics must be enabled for the server.

    • The user is able to connect to the server.

    • The user has the Personalize permission in the server.

  3. Import the file <DENODO_HOME>/resources/data-catalog/statistics/compute_usage_statistics_scheduler.zip in Scheduler. This will create the data_catalog_statistics project, which contains:

    • A Virtual DataPort data source named VDP.

    • A VDP job named compute_usage_statistics_all_servers that executes a query over the view with the same name.

  4. Edit the following properties of the VDP data source:

    • Connection URI. Enter the connection URI of the Virtual DataPort that contains the compute_usage_statistics_all_servers view.

    • Username and Password. Enter the credentials of the user. Take into account that this user must have enough privileges to connect to Virtual DataPort and execute the compute_usage_statistics_all_servers view.

  5. Edit the triggers of the compute_usage_statistics_all_servers so it runs in a regular basis according to your needs. Our recommendation is to run this job at least once a day.

Theme

You can customize the interface of the Data Catalog to adapt it to the branding of your company. You can change the following settings:

  • The colors. You can also invert the colors of some elements (i.e. the page header), this will allow you to build a dark theme.

  • The border and shadows of the dialogs and forms.

  • The fonts.

  • The logo, header and other images of the application.

    Note

    The maximum size for uploaded images is 5MB.

Dialog to configure the theme of the Data Catalog

Dialog to configure the theme of the Data Catalog

Click on the Apply theme if you want to test your changes before persist them. The changes will only be applied for the current tab of your browser. Other tabs or other browsers will ignore these changes.

If you want to persist your changes, click the Save button. You need to restart the Data Catalog for your changes to take effect.

You can always go back to the original settings by clicking the Restore defaults button.

If you want to save your settings to a file, use the Export button. To load the settings from a file, use the Import button.

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