Metadata Search¶

The search by metadata allows you to seek views or web services that contain the query terms in their metadata, considering an element’s metadata as:

Its name.
Its description.
The names of its fields.
The descriptions of its fields.
The values of any custom properties it has assigned.

To create a search by metadata you have to:

Type your query in the search bar located at the top left corner.
Select the Metadata option under the Filter results section.
Select your filtering options.
Launch the query, by one of the following ways:
- Press ENTER right after you typed your search terms.
- Click the icon from the search bar.
- Click the Apply filters button at the bottom of the Filter results section.

Note

Notice that the first time you search some terms, the Data Catalog will perform a search by metadata. In addition, if the search by content is not available, all your searches will be by metadata.

Searching query terms in the metadata of views and web services

In the results list of a search by metadata, the name of a view or web service is a link to its details page¶

The results list supports two display modes: list or grid. To have more information about each result, click the icon to enable the list mode. Instead, if you prefer more results in the page, click the icon to enable the grid mode.

For each result, you can check how many fields or custom properties matched with the query. Just click on the icon. If you want to know more information about them, click on the icon and check the fields and custom properties that matched.

Matched fields and custom properties for a result¶

Take into account that the search by metadata supports simple, inclusive and case insensitive queries:

Simple: The queries consist of a list of terms and a set of filtering options. Complex conditions involving logical operands like AND, OR or NOT are not supported.
Inclusive: For a view or web service to appear in the results list, its metadata must contain the search terms. For instance, the search term customer will match with the views customer and dv_customers, since the search term is included in their names.
Case insensitive: Uppercase and lowercase letters are treated the same when the Data Catalog compares the terms in the query and the terms in the metadata. For instance, the search term CUSTOMER will match with the views customer and Customer, since their names are composed by the same letters.

Note

If the query is empty, all the views and web services will match with it.

In addition, you can refine your results applying some of the available filtering options under the Filter results section:

Element type. Select which type of elements you want in the results:
- Views and web services.
- Views only.
- Web services only.
Search fields. By default all the fields in the metadata participate in the search. You can alter this set by selecting which ones should be taken into account:
- Name.
- Description.
- Field name.
- Field description.
- Property value.
Collaboration. Only the views and web services with at least one of the collaboration you choose will appear in the results:
- Endorsed.
- Warned.
- Deprecated.
Databases. By default, all the databases in the Virtual DataPort server participate in the search. You can refine your results list by selecting the list of databases to consider.
Categories. If you select a category, in the results list will only appear those views and web services that belong to that category or any of its subcategories.
Tags. If you select a tag, in the results list will only appear those views and web services with that tag assigned.

Important

An administrator of the Data Catalog should consider that:

In order to work, the search by metadata requires that the Data Catalog has been synchronized with the Virtual DataPort server at least once. Otherwise, the results list will be empty.
For a view or web service to appear in the results list, the user must be granted with the CONNECT privilege on its database and with the METADATA privilege on it.