The Catalogs tab allows the user to define, modify, and manage catalogs. Catalogs are the reference data that is made available to the device and that is managed separately from the notifications that the profile may trigger.
Catalogs Table
The Catalogs table displays all of the catalogs defined for the Profile. The "refresh" action button below the table will refresh the display of the table's contents.
Primary Catalog Attributes
| Catalog | Unique arbitrary name for the Catalog. This is the name by which the server and devices will track Catalogs and reference them in communications. |
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| Description | Human-friendly description of the Catalog |
| Object Name | MBO type the Catalog represents |
| Where Clause | The selection clause for the catalog. This clause is run against the MBO type specified in "Object Name" to determine which MBOs are in scope of the Catalog. |
Catalog Initialization
Once the Profile is active, Informer will observe changes to data it is tracking, and save those changes as deltas. Before this can happen, however, Informer needs to form a baseline set of Informer data for each Catalog to record these changes against as they occur.
Initialization is an extended process which runs is executed by background Queue Processors once initiated.
Initialization Attributes
| Initialized? | Indicates whether the Catalog has completed its initialization process. All Catalogs must indicate Initialization before a profile becomes active. |
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Initialization Action Buttons
| Initialize | Queue initialization of all selected Catalogs |
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Catalog Preloading
If the Catalog "preload" checkbox is marked, then the catalog pages that will be delivered to the device are pregenerated and statically available for when a device makes and initial catalog load request. For large catalogs such as assets and locations, this will significantly reduce the catalog delivery time for initial provisioning. It will also significantly reduce the server load since the catalog will not need to be generated for each device that makes the request, but rather only once for the pregeneration.
Activating "preload" is optional, but recommended in almost every circumstance.
Catalog Preload Attributes
| Preload? | Indicates whether the preload process has completed successfully for the Catalog. |
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| Threshold | Since catalogs are dynamic and change over time, from time to time the preloaded catalog will need to be refreshed. The value in the Threshold field determines how many catalog updates can occur before a catalog is considered stale and is regenerated by a configured system crontask. |
| Page Size | When performing a preload, this is the number of catalog records stored in each communication payload. Normally this is driven by the Informer application, but when specified on the server, the pregenerated pages are fixed size and will be delivered in the size configured. |
| Load Preload | Timestamp when the last preload operation produced preload pages. |
| Preload Count | Number of records currently stored in preload pages |
Preload Action Buttons
| Generate Preload | Queue the (re)generation of preload data for the selected Catalog(s), as necessary according to the attributes set. |
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Catalog Reconciliation
Catalog data is collected two primary ways: Initialization, and events listeners for MBO changes when the profile is active. This leaves out three cases:
- Changes which occurred while the Profile was inactive
- Changes made while the server is in Admin Mode
- Changes made with direct SQL statements, bypassing the MBO layer, such as following a data migration or manual integration
In any of these cases, we may have changes which Informer did not observe when they occurred, possibly resulting in outdated Catalog information. Informer can reconcile its catalog records when asked to, to pick of these changes.
Changes while the Profile was inactive are always possible, so a reconciliation task is an automatic part of profile activation. In the other cases, however, a reconciliation should be triggered manually when an administrator anticipates or observes untracked changes.
Reconciliation is an extended process which runs is executed by background Queue Processors once initiated.
Reconciliation Action Buttons
| Reoncile | For all selected Catalogs, fetch all matching records and build the baseline set of Informer data for the Catalog. This is an extended process which runs is executed by background queue processors once initiated. |
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Manage Where Clauses
In some cases it may be desirable to have multiple variations on a single base catalog definition. In these cases additional where clauses can be added by clicking the Add Where Clause button. Each additional where clause will be named and the unique where clause will be specified. In the example below the catalog is broken into two sites, SITE1 and SITE2 and the application can then choose to only download the relevant site information by specifying the Where Clause Name + "_" + Catalog Name.
Sub-Tabs
Attributes Sub-Tab
The Attributes table allows specific attributes from the Catalog's MBO to be selected. These attributes will be included when a request for the catalog is made. Only changes to the listed attributes will trigger updates being sent to the devices. Similar to Notifications, attributes on Catalogs can be either primary attributes on the Catalog's backing MBO, or can be relationship-derived, such as PERSON.DISPLAYNAME for a LABOR object.
Listener Sub-Tab
The Listener table allows secondary MBO listeners to be specified for the selected Catalog. In this example, the ASSETS Catalog has a LOCATION.DESCRIPTION attribute. An update of the Location's DESCRIPTION does not trigger a modification on the ASSET MBO, but it does update our ASSETS Catalog, so we need a secondary listener to catch this case. Here, this list entry specifies that if a LOCATIONS object is updated, Informer may need to update any records it has on the ASSETs identified via its LOCATIONS.ASSET relationship.
The Where Clause is an alternative to the specification of a defined Maximo relationship, but otherwise works the same.
Devices Sub-Tab
The Devices sub tab displays a list of devices which have a copy of the selected Catalog. To force a reset of the data on one on more devices, select the devices to reset and then click the Reset Selected Devices button.