ProductsMapForceData Mapping Made Easy

MapForce® 2008 includes an array of features that help developers design mappings quickly and easily.

MapForce is optimized with user-friendly and time-saving features designed to simplify mapping projects and accelerate the development of higher-quality applications. Just a few of these are detailed below.

MapForce includes a mapping overview window that allows you to visualize an entire mapping project and zoom in on specific areas as required. In addition, while scrolling through the project itself, the overview window indicates your position within the map. This feature helps you navigate even the largest mapping project with ease.

MapForce provides an extensible library of data processing functions, which are available in the library pane of the design window. The library pane displays the currently available libraries, as well as the individual functions of each library, in a hierarchical tree structure that you can expand and collapse. To add a function to your mapping, simply drag it from the library into the mapping design window.

For quick reference when working with data processing functions, the “show library name” button allows you to display or hide the name of the library that contains each function used in your mapping, as shown below.

Refer to the data processing page for more information.

The pace at which business evolves today necessitates that critical data structures evolve as well. To help manage your data mappings when data structures are updated, MapForce detects when a source or target XML schema, FlexText configuration, EDI configuration file, or Web service is changed in an external application. MapForce immediately alerts you of the change, and you can ignore the message or reload the data structure to see what has changed.

For instance, in the screenshot below, the Amount element in the ShortPO.xsd file has been deleted outside of MapForce, and a new element called Total has been added. After reloading the schema, MapForce indicates the change with an icon and highlights the involved connections in orange, allowing you to refactor the mapping with a few simple clicks. Once you have refactored the mapping, MapForce removes any icons and highlighted connections to indicate that your mapping structures are in sync.

The "show types" button displays the schema datatypes for each element or attribute in your mapping project.

While you are designing a mapping, MapForce connects matching child elements as you drag connecting lines between the elements of the source and target by default. This feature saves a significant amount of time, especially when developing large mappings containing structures containing elements with multiple children. This function is completely customizable through the Connect Matching Children dialog.

MapForce also checks for all matching descendent elements and connects all of these based on one user-defined connection.

Very often, a mapping project will involve XML content models that contain fragments of XML that needs to be copied to the target schema without being modified; for example, fragments of HTML are often embedded in other schemas for documentation purposes. This feature allows you to simply map the entire XML fragment from the source to the target schema, and all children will be mapped automatically with their entire structure intact. Another example where this is useful feature is if a portion of a schema used in a mapping is revised periodically. This new mapping connection will map all children at once, irrespective of whether the schema for the child elements has changed or not.

If your do not have an associated schema for your XML instance, MapForce is able to generate a sample XML Schema behind-the-scenes for use as a content model component for your mapping. This option will appear when you attempt to open or load an XML document in MapForce.

In addition to the robust XML mapping capabilities of MapForce, you now have the option to edit the actual schema definition of any XML Schema loaded in MapForce using Altova XMLSpy®. Simply right click on any XML Schema in the MapForce design window and select “Edit Schema Definition in XMLSpy.”

To take advantage of this feature, you must have XMLSpy installed on your computer. XMLSpy is included in Altova’s specially-priced product bundle, the MissionKit™, which offers up to eight Altova products for less than the price of two. Learn about the features supported by the entire suite of Altova tools here.

See how MapForce® 2008 will simplify and accelerate your next data integration project. Download a free trial today!

* Pricing comparison is edition-specific and based on Altova MissionKit vs. any two individual licenses of the following included products: XMLSpy and MapForce.