Transforms
Data Manager is included in all Service Collection Premium and Enterprise plans.
Transform functions are short sections of code that can be added to a data source to modify the raw data as it’s brought into Data Manager. No functions are enabled by default, but there are several functions that can be added.
A function added to a data source will be run when that data source is fetched.
You cannot use a transform function until a data source has been run at least once to upload the data from the Adapters client.
Typically, transforms are added to a data source to clean up or improve the formatting of fields that are being copied from a data source. For example:
A field holding the amount of memory for a device might be enhanced by adding a Set Column Type function to change the data type as Big Int so that field can be searched or filtered later.
A field holding hostnames from VCenter might be cleaned by using the Remove Right Substring function to remove all of the trailing information after a period.
Transform functions and Cleansing rules are not the same!
Transform function | Purpose | Comments |
|---|---|---|
Remove right substring | Removes the right hand side of a delimiter from a string field. | The column or attribute name that is impacted must be specified. |
Replace String | Replaces an old character with a new character in a string field. | he column or attribute name that is impacted must be specified. |
Add DateDiff Column | Adds a column to the table containing data retrieved from the data source and fills it with the number of days between the specified column and a base date. | The column or attribute name that is impacted must be specified. For the difference to be calculated, a base date needs to be specified in dd/mm/yyyy format. If the base date is not specified, the transform uses the current date. |
Calculate IP Subnet Range | Converts the subnet to CIDR long range. | The subnet column name of the table needs to be specified. This is the table which contains the data retrieved from the data source. |
Concatenate two columns | Allows two columns to be concatenated together. | You’ll need to specify the new concatenated column name, the two columns you want to concatenate, and a separator (for example, whether you want the two columns separated by a comma, a hyphen or a space). Note: You can also concatenate a concatenated column after a transform is ran. This allows you to bring together more than 2 columns. |
Convert String to DateTime | Converts a string field to a date time field. | The date format of the source column must be specified. The format you select must be from the list of formats compliant with Microsoft. |
Discover Locations | Adds the location data to the table. It is based on IP analysis of the data source that produces the subnet/sites and services table. | The subnets data source name must be specified. |
Rename Column With Right String | Renames an existing column. In doing so, it also matches the old column name partly from right-hand side. | As an example suppose you already have an |
Replace with Null | Replaces a column/field with NULL value. | The value(s) to be replaced with NULL and column name must be specified. Multiple values need to be separated with a comma between them. |
Set Column type | Sets the data type for the column/field/attribute in a table. This is the table which contains retrieved data from the data source. | The column name and data type need to be specified. |
Trim right by count | Removes characters from the right side of a column value. | The column name and the number of characters to remove. |
Trim right by pattern | Removed characters from the right side of a volumn value, but only for rows where the column value matches a specified patter. | The column name, the number of characters to remove and the specified pattern to match. |
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