ProductsMapForceGlobal Resources

MapForce® 2008 includes advanced integration capabilities with XMLSpy®, StyleVision®, and DatabaseSpy®, enabling you to access the powerful functionality of other installed Altova tools all from one central interface.

Global Resources support in MapForce offers significant productivity enhancement to developers. Users who have other Altova tools installed on their system, most notably the MissionKit™ software bundle, will be able to take advantage of seamless integration capabilities.

Using the Global Resources dialog, you can define a target deployment environment on-the-fly within your MapForce project, specifying ancillary files, directories, data sources, etc. By creating a collection of aliases for file, folder, and database resources, all of which map to a single resource, MapForce allows developers to quickly and easily configure test, development and deployment resources within MapForce as well as other supported Altova tools.

• Workflows can be defined that use various Altova applications to process data.
• An application can invoke a target application, initiate data processing there, and route the data back to the originating application.
• Defining input and output data, file locations as well as databases, as global resources.
• Switching between global resources during runtime - for example, to switch between development or deployment resources.
• "What if" scenarios for QA purposes.

Global Resources in MapForce can be any input/output component files or even the result of a transformation - supported datatypes include: XML, databases, flat files, EDI, Excel 2007 (OOXML), and/or Web services.

To create a Global Resource, you simply select the file, directory, or database that you wish to define, and then optionally assign a configuration or one you have previously created (if you do not make a selection, Default will be used).

Your settings are then automatically saved by default to your My Documents folder, where they can be easily accessed by MapForce and other Altova applications.

Once you have your Global Resource(s) defined, you can easily assign it to a mapping component at any time using the Component Settings dialog.

Using the Global Resources drop-down menu in the MapForce toolbar enables you to toggle back and forth between different configurations. Selecting the Output tab in MapForce will display variable output, based on the selected configuration.

The screenshots on this page illustrate a scenario where different XML instances are being used as mapping input components, but you could just as easily choose between test and development database environments, enable different workflow processes, etc.

Global Resources support is a significant advantage for users of the MissionKit, Altova's software bundle. Access to Global Resources in XMLSpy, MapForce, StyleVision, and DatabaseSpy means that you can seamlessly easily work with these assets in multiple applications, calling upon the superior integration features to exchange files behind-the-scenes and optimize your XML, data integration, and database workflow(s).

Take advantage of the Global Resources support across Altova's powerful XML, data integration, and database tools. Download a free trial of the Altova® MissionKit™ 2008 today!