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About the Domain Value Conversion Process

To best understand the domain value conversion process, consider an example of two source systems—Source System A and Source System B. Each source system stores two types of employee events—hire and rehire. Source system A uses H to denote a hire event and R to denote a rehire event, whereas source system B uses 1 to denote a hire event and 2 to denote a rehire event. When the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse extracts data from both systems, it ports those source values through the extract mapping until the data reaches the W_EVENT_GRP_CODE column in the TF_EVENT_TYPES Staging table.

The load mapping then ports the extracted source values (H and R from source system A, and 1 and 2 from source system B) into the Source Adapter mapplet. Within the Source Adapter, source values are translated into domain values (HIR and REH) based on a set of rules that are particular to your business practices.

Preparing to Define the Rules

You must define the rules so that the Source Adapter knows how to map your specific source values to the given set of domain values. Before you set up the rules you must:

1. Analyze all of your source values and how they map to the prepackaged domain values. You may find that you need to create additional domain values for particular columns. The result of this preparation work is a list of each source value and how it is mapped to a domain value.
2. Implement this logic in the applicable Source Adapter mapplet. To set up the logic, modify the Expression transformation in the Source Adapter mapplet for each affected column. For information on setting up the rules for domain values, see Configuring the Domain Value Set Using PowerCenter Designer.

Figure 21 illustrates how the source values are converted to the domain values—HIR and REH.

Figure 21. Source Values Translated to Domain Values

Figure 22 illustrates a different situation where the records may not contain a source value that flags the record as Hire or Rehire. In this case, the source system stores hires in one table and rehires in another table. To make this work, one possible solution is to modify the extract mappings to populate the W_EVENT_GRP_CODE column with HIR or REH. If the field is populated in the extract mapping, you can then carry those same values through the Source Adapter mapplet.

Figure 22. Records Mapped to Domain Values

After the Source Adapter mapplet converts the source-specific values to domain values, the domain values are inserted into an Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse table. In this example, the HIR and REH values populate the W_EVENT_TYPES table, as illustrated in Figure 23.

Figure 23. Domain Value Loading Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse Table