[box type=”note” align=”” class=”” width=””]This article is an excerpt from a book by Rahul Malewar titled Learning Informatica PowerCenter 10.x. The book harnesses the power and simplicity of Informatica PowerCenter 10.x to build and manage efficient data management solutions.[/box]
This article guides you through working with the target designer in the Informatica’s PowerCenter. It provides a user interface for creation and customization of the logical target schema.
PowerCenter is capable of working with different types of targets to load data:
Let’s start!
Just as we discussed importing and creating source files and source tables, we need to work on target definitions.
The process of importing the target table is exactly same as importing the Source table, the only difference is that you need to work in the Target Designer.
You can import or create the table structure in the Target Designer. After you add these target definitions to the repository, you can use them in a mapping.
Follow these steps to import the table target definition:
The structure of the selected tables will appear in the Target Designer in workspace.
As mentioned, the process is the same as importing the source in the Source Analyzer. Follow the preceding steps in case of some issues.
The process of importing the target file is exactly same as importing the Source file, the only difference is that you need to work on the Target Designer.
Following are the steps that you will have to perform to work with delimited files.
We now move on to fixed width files.
Following are the steps that you will have to perform to work with fixed width Files:
Just as in the case of working with sources, we move on to the create option in target.
Apart from importing the file or table structure, we can manually create the Target Definition. When the sample Target file or the table structure is not available, we need to manually create the Target structure. When we select the create option, we need to define every detail related to the file or table manually, such as the name of the Target, the type of the Target, column names, column data type, column data size, indexes, constraints, and so on. When you import the structure, the import wizard automatically imports all these details.
This will open the T_EMPLOYEES target definition.
Let’s move on to something interesting now!
PowerCenter provides a very convenient way of reusing the existing components in the Repository. It provides the Drag-Drop feature, which helps in reusing the existing components.
Using the Drag-Drop feature, you can copy the existing source definition created earlier to the Target Designer in order to create the target definition with the same structure.
Follow these steps:
Step 1: In the Designer, go to Tools | Target Designer to open the Target Designer.
Step 2: Drag the SRC_STUDENT source definition from the Navigator to the Target Designer workspace as shown in the following screenshot:
Step 3: The Designer creates a target definition, SRC_STUDENT, with the same column definitions as the SRC_STUDENT source definition and the same database type:
Step 4: Double-click on the title bar of the SRC_STUDENT target definition to open it and edit properties if you wish to change some properties.
Step 5: Click on Rename:
Step 6: A new pop-up window will allow you to mention the new name. Change the target definition name to TGT_STUDENT:
Step 7: Click on OK
Step 8: Click on the Columns tab. The target column definitions are the same as the SRC_STUDENT source definition. You can add new columns, delete existing columns, or edit the columns as per your requirement.
Step 9: Click on OK to save the changes and close the dialog box.
Step 10: Go to Repository | Save
With Informatica PowerCenter 10.1.0, now you can drag and drop the target definition from target designer into Source Analyzer. In the previous topic, we learned to drag-drop the Source definition from Source Analyzer and reuse it in Target Designer. In the previous versions of Informatica, this feature was not available. In the latest version, this feature is now available.
Follow the steps as shown in the preceding section to drag-drop the target definition into Source Analyzer.
In the article, we have tried to explain how to work with the target designer, one of the basic component of the PowerCenter designer screen in Informatica 10.x. Additionally to use the target definition from the target designer to create a source definition.
If you liked the above article, checkout our book, Learning Informatica PowerCenter 10.x. The book will let you explore more on how to implement various data warehouse and ETL concepts, and use PowerCenter 10.x components to build mappings, tasks, workflows, and so on.
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