Adding "Friendly" Names to FM Model

[FLPylot]

I have run into something that I have not had to deal with before and need some additional insight from more experienced users of FM. I have imported data from a DB2 data warehouse and now the customer wants to add Business Friendly names to the Cognos reports. I have a table of the Table Name, Column Name, Business Friendly Column Name and Business Friendly Column Description but do not know how to link that table to the existing FM models. It would be a case of saying a column name in the DB is LN_ACCT_BKRPT_DTE and the table I have says that column name equals "Account Bankruptcy Date" with a description of "Date the account was placed in bankruptcy status". I would like to have the new column name show up in the Cognos report and use the description as a tooltip text.

[MFGF]

I have run into something that I have not had to deal with before and need some additional insight from more experienced users of FM. I have imported data from a DB2 data warehouse and now the customer wants to add Business Friendly names to the Cognos reports. I have a table of the Table Name, Column Name, Business Friendly Column Name and Business Friendly Column Description but do not know how to link that table to the existing FM models. It would be a case of saying a column name in the DB is LN_ACCT_BKRPT_DTE and the table I have says that column name equals "Account Bankruptcy Date" with a description of "Date the account was placed in bankruptcy status". I would like to have the new column name show up in the Cognos report and use the description as a tooltip text.

Hi,

This is where a strategy of modelling in separate layers comes in. You can maintain the original table and column names in the foundation layer, and in the layer above you can replace all the database table and column names with the friendly names you have been given. This can either be a manual process, or you can use the language export/import feature to help you do it quickly. Here's a post that details this:

http://www.cognoise.com/index.php/topic,22165.msg67736.html#msg67736

Cheers!

MF.

[FLPylot]

Thank you! That is very helpful.

I agree about the layers and will be much more thoughtful in my next models.

Cheers!

[Andrew Weiss]

FLPylot,

This is an excellent use case for MetaManager's MetaEditor module.  As MFGF recommended a separate layer in the model can be created to carry the friendly formatted information.  Using MetaEditor you can easily populate this layer with the information from the database.  MetaEditor allows you to take a slice of a model and then export the information to an Excel file, which can then be manipulated and re-imported into the model.  Connecting to a database and using a vlookup to matchup new names and description is a common use case with this feature.

Have a look at the demonstration here and you can download a trial.
http://www.bspsoftware.com/products/metamanager/Update

Thanks,
-Andy