Navigating the Data Bridge user interface

The following screenshot shows the main application window for Data Bridge, which consists of a navigator sidebar on the left side and a workspace area in the center.

The navigator sidebar enables you to navigate to the different workspaces, such as the View Explorer workspace. To expand the sidebar menu, and see the names of the workspaces, click the collapsed menu button at the top of the sidebar, or click directly on a workspace name to navigate to that workspace.

NexJ Data Bridge provides the following workspaces.

• The View Explorer displays the views that you created in the views data table. When you create a view, snapshot mode is enabled by default. The Export Count column in the views data table displays the estimated number of records that will be exported when you publish a snapshot for each view. You can perform the following actions from the data table toolbar:

  • Click the Add View button  in the data table toolbar to add a view on the Create View page.

  • Sort records in the data table in ascending or descending order. When you hover over a header of a column that can be used to sort the records, an arrow displays beside the column header. To sort the records in the data table by a sortable column, click the column header. A sorted column displays an up or down arrow beside the header to indicate the sort order. To reverse the sort order, click the column header again. You can also click the Sort by button in the data table toolbar and select a column to sort the displayed results.

  • Click the Select columns button  in the data table toolbar to choose the columns to display in the data table.
    You can do the following in the data table:

    • Hover over a view to reveal action buttons to:

      • Edit the view definition by clicking the Edit View button

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      • Delete a selected view by clicking the Delete View button

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      • Perform additional actions by clicking the More Actions button to:

        • Publish a snapshot of a view by selecting Publish Snapshot, and selecting the snapshot enabled publishing target. For more information, see Managing publishing targets. A message will display asking you to confirm that you want to export the specified number of records.

          

          The JSON files that are generated from snapshots that use the File (JSON) publishing target have a .json extension and the file encoding uses UTF-8.

        • Export the definition for a selected view by selecting Export Definition.

          

          You can edit or delete views that you created. You can only view, export, or clone views created by other users

        • Refresh the Export Count column data by selecting Refresh.

    • Use the Items per page drop-down to limit the number of items displayed per page.

    • Use the chevron buttons  to navigate between pages to display additional views.

    • As of Data Bridge 3.4.0, you can delete all views at once by selecting the Select all checkbox beside the Name column in the data table and clicking Delete Views.

• The Monitoring Dashboard enables you to view a high-level summary of streaming near real-time exports performance data and snapshots performance data on a single canvas. For more information, see Monitoring the performance of real-time streaming exports and snapshots.

• The Global Settings workspace enables you to:

  • Review CRM connection information, file export information settings, and Kafka server settings that were configured during deployment. For more information, see Using the Global Settings workspace.

  • Load model changes (for example, new subject areas) at run time on the Dynamic Metadata Loading card and view the current list of loaded metaclasses on the Loaded Subject Areas card. For more information, see Loading model changes at run time.

  • Export CRM metadata as JSON using the CRM Data Bridge Adapter Admin card. For more information, see Using the Global Settings workspace.

View Builder

Use the View Builder to define a view on the Create View page or edit a view. Launch the View Builder by clicking the Add View button 

The View Builder consists of the following:

• A Create View selection dialog where you can select subject areas, and Blank <Subject Area> View to open the Create View page.

• A Create View page that contains:

  • A banner where you can add the views's name and description.

  • A view settings pane on the left-hand side with the following tabs:

    • Data Selection
      Select the required fields and filters for your view. For more information, see Creating views.

    • Publishing Options
      Select the required streaming publishing, snapshot publishing, and schedule options, and provide the required Kafka topic name for a view. You can also configure a custom header for publishing event streaming updates to an HTTP URL, and add publishing targets to a view. For more information, see Creating views.

  • A view data pane on the right-hand side that displays a preview of the raw view data in the Data tab and the message data formatted in JSON in the Message tab. These previews refresh in real time as you modify your view settings. Display additional columns using the chevron buttons . Some collections provide links to associated records on the applicable NexJ CRM workspace. For more information about collections, see Viewing fields of a collection.

You can perform the following actions from the Create view page:

• • Save the view by clicking the Save button . The View Details page displays.

  • Cancel creation of the report by clicking the Cancel button

    

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  • Edit a view and revert your changes by clicking the Revert button

    

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View Details

While the View Builder displays a preview of your view data, the View Details page displays the current full data for a selected view. Launch the View Details page by clicking on a view in the views data table.

For more information about the actions you can perform on the View Details page, see Viewing definitions.

View fields

Fields are the basic building blocks for views. Each field represents an attribute that you can include in the view.

You can select fields in the Data Selection tab on the Create View page. Conduct a direct search for fields by entering the field name in the Add Fields text search field, or clicking the Select button 

If you select a collection field in the Add fields dialog (for example, the Activities field for a Contacts view), and expand the field to select related fields (for example, Activity End Time or Activity Start Time), the view displays the fields of the collection grouped by the subject area (for example, the interactions grouped by contacts). In views, collection fields can be identified by their default fields. The default field is displayed in views to represent the selected collection whether the default field is selected or not (for example, the default field for the Activities collection is the Description field). 

Selected fields and default fields of selected collections display as columns in the Data tab in the view data pane. The columns refresh in real time as you add, remove, or modify fields. You can reorder the fields using drag-and-drop in the Fields section in the view settings pane.

After you add a field, you can apply filters to include or exclude specific records from the view. For some fields, multiple selection dialogs are available, where you can select specific values to include or exclude. For other fields, you can use operators, such as equals, contains, greater than, less than, between, unspecified, and so on, to define the filter. For more information about operators supported by Data Bridge, see Using operators.

The maximum number of fields that you can add to a view is 200.