Externally-Managed Taxonomies

Overview of externally-managed taxonomies
An externally-managed taxonomy is a logical hierarchy for a data set that is built and managed using a third-party tool. Once you include an externally-managed taxonomy in your project, it becomes a dimension whose hierarchy is managed by the third-party tool that created it.

Including externally-managed taxonomies in your project
You can use Developer Studio to include an externally-managed taxonomy into your project, but you cannot alter the taxonomy within Developer Studio, even after importing it.

XSLT and XML requirements
To transform an externally-managed taxonomy into an externally-managed dimension, you have to create an XSLT style sheet that instructs Forge how to map the taxonomy XML to Endeca XML. The mapping in your XSLT style sheet and your resulting hierarchy must conform to the Endeca external_dimensions.dtd file.

Pipeline configuration
These sections describe the pipeline configuration requirements to incorporate an externally-managed taxonomy into your Developer Studio project.

About updating an externally-managed taxonomy in your pipeline
If you want to modify an externally-managed taxonomy and replace it with a newer version, you have to revise the taxonomy using the third-party tool that created it, and then repeat the process of incorporating the externally-managed taxonomy into your pipeline.

Unexpected default-mapping behavior
Under certain circumstances, Forge will default-map dimensions from externally-managed taxonomies even when default dimension mapping is disabled in the Property Mapper. The following two conditions are required for this behavior to occur: