Data Extraction and Forwarding Agent (or DEFA) collects identified data at predefined intervals from a data source and forwards it to a data collector component (Intellicus Report Server) which can transform and load this data. It gives you an ease of receiving only the incremental data as well.
DEFA step in Query Object
A DEFA step will be defined for receiving data from one or more DEFA agents.
For defining a DEFA step, you need to have a snap shot of data that can be received by this DEFA step. This sampling data is used to understand structure of data that will be sent by configured DEFA agent(s) for this step.
You need to specify a connection for metadata for designing a query. This would help DEFA know which data to fetch. This data can come from RDBMS, JSON and file based (TXT, CSV) data sources.
Figure 18: DEFA Step
The properties to be defined for DEFA are mentioned in the underneath table.
| Property | Values | Comments | |
| Connection for Metadata | Select from list | Connection to be used to design query for metadata.
Select from already created connections on the Configure>Databases tab |
|
| Incremental Column | Select from list | Identity column for DEFA to extract incremental data | |
| Schedule | Data Extraction Start at | Select from list | Start time for DEFA to fetch(extract) data |
| Data Extraction Interval | Type Yourself (as hr:min:sec) | Time interval after which DEFA should fetch data | |
| Data Forward Interval | Type Yourself (as hr:min:sec) | Time interval after which DEFA should send (forward) data to Report Server | |
Field Properties
| Property | Values | Comments |
| Data Type | CHAR,
NUMBER, DATE, BINARY |
Select the data type of the incoming data |
| Data Format | Format String | Specify the format of the incoming data. This is useful only if Date or IP Address type data are incoming in CHAR fields but needs to be converted to Date and Number types for further use |
| Sort Priority | Number 0-N | If the data is sorted on multiple fields then specify sort priority number of this field.
Primary sort field should be the lowest number |
| Sort Criteria | Ascending/
Descending |
Specify sort as either ascending or descending order |
| Length | Type yourself | Length of field for Char data type |
| Scale | Type yourself | Scale or number of digits after decimal point |
| Database Time Zone | Select Time zone from the list | Specify the time zone in which the incoming date data is stored. This is useful only if date time data needs to be converted to other time zone data based on reporting requirement.
For example, when incoming GMT data need to show EDT (or any requested TZ) value in report, specify that the incoming data is GMT. The output format is generally specified in Format step or in user preference |
| Locale | Select from the list | Select the language/ country in which the incoming date data is stored |
| Qualified Name | Type yourself | This name helps using the field name in all the SQL clauses such as WHERE and ORDER BY or to resolve field name ambiguity when same field comes from two tables or expressions |