Contextual Data Mashup Overview
Note:
Contextual Data Mashup features allow you to augment your organization's inventory data with non-discoverable business context data you provide. The contextual data you upload can be combined with your normalized inventory and the Technopedia catalog data on software and devices to produce unique reports tailored to your organization's particular business needs. The custom reports and insights built with your normalized inventory data and your contextual mashup data have the potential to identify business strengths and weaknesses or to illuminate behavior so you can make better-informed, data-driven decisions.
As you work with contextual data uploads and edits, observe the following guidelines:
| • | Role Requirements |
| • | Reference Field Requirements |
| • | CSV File Data |
| • | Case Sensitivity and Spaces in Attribute Names |
| • | CSV File Limitations |
Contextual Data Mashup functionality, such as uploading, updating, and delete your contextual data, requires one of the following roles: Manage Contextual Data or Manage Organization.
In the CSV file you supply to upload your business context data, the first row must include column names and one or more of the columns must serve as the reference column. The field you use for the reference column depends on whether you want to use it to supply mashup data for devices or for software:
| • | Device Mashup—Reference column must use either the HardwareID field or a combination of the Name, Domain and Serial Number fields for contextualization related to devices. |
| • | Software Mashup—Reference column must use either the TechnopediaGUID field or the TechnopediaLegacyID field for contextualization related to software. |
Flexera One uses the reference column values to correlate your business context data with your inventory data already in IT Visibility.
Tip:To quickly build a CSV file for data mashup, consider creating a custom report in Power BI that includes reference field data appropriate for the IT asset type (software or devices) plus any other data that will help match up the business context data you plan to upload. Then, save and export that report as a CSV file to use as a starting point to merge with the business context data you intend to upload. For software data mashup, for example, create a Power BI report that includes a Product ID or a Release ID or a Manufacture ID.
Depending on the data contained in the CSV file, the column types are populated in the Connect to your existing model dialog box after the CSV file import is successful. There are two column types: Reference columns and Attribute columns.
| • | Reference columns—If the CSV file contains a column with the reference field, such as HardwareID or TechnopediaGUID (as mentioned above), the default column type is Reference. |
| • | For device mashup, if the CSV file contains a column labeled HardwareID then that column is automatically selected as a reference column. If the CSV file contains columns labeled Name, SerialNumber, and Domain, then these columns are automatically selected as reference columns. |
| • | For software mashup, if the CSV file contains a column labeled either TechnopediaGUID or TechnopediaLegacyID then that column is selected as a reference column. |
| • | Attribute columns—The datatype of an Attribute column (any columns other than the Reference columns) is automatically set based on the first value of the column. However, you can subsequently change the datatype of the attribute through the UI itself. |
The following table illustrates a device mashup sample CSV file:
|
HardwareID |
Region |
|
000767af-2afb-42ac-a7e5-20118f132da4 |
EMEA |
|
0017a0ad-2fe3-453b-a4e8-e8dc13f6a95a |
EMEA |
|
00235219-8df0-4f8a-90c1-b96ee949166c |
NAM |
|
004ce9d5-cb1c-499c-be36-5ff216d85180 |
APAC |
Here, the HardwareID column is the reference column and the Region column is the contextual attribute information for the device.
Always ensure that the datatype of a contextual attribute is same across all data sources.
Case Sensitivity and Spaces in Attribute Names
While creating contextual data attributes in the CSV, the case sensitivity of the various attributes is ignored if the attribute name is the same. For example, contextual attributes such as Region and region would be treated as the same.
On successful upload or update of contextual information against an device or software, these contextual attributes will be available in Power BI. However, the irrespective of the case of the attribute name in the CSV, the attribute names in Power BI will start with an uppercase letter. For example, if your CSV file had an attribute named region it would appear as Region in Power BI. (You can subsequently change the display name of an attribute in the Power BI report as desired.)
Avoid using spaces in attribute names. If your CSV data does have an attribute name with one or more spaces in the name, the spaces will be converted to underscore characters by the CSV upload and update processes.
The following limitations apply to CSV files you upload with your business context data:
| • | Files uploaded for data mashup must be in CSV (comma-separated value) format. |
| • | For CSV file uploads, UTF-8 encoding is not supported. |
| • | The values in the CSV file can include only standard English characters; they cannot contain extended, non-standard characters. |
| • | The maximum number of columns in a CSV including the reference columns are 20. |
Tip:If you get an error when you attempt to upload business context data, ensure the values include no non-English or non-standard characters.