Business Intelligence Tutorial
The Information Catalog Manager makes it easy to start a program that
can retrieve the actual data that an object describes. For example, if
you have objects describing graphic charts, you can set up a graphic program,
such as CorelDRAW!, so that you can retrieve the actual charts for editing,
copying, or printing.
The Information Catalog Manager can start any program that runs on the
Windows platform you are using, or that can be started from an MS-DOS command
prompt. The program must be installed on the client workstation.
A single object type can start more than one program (for example, the
object type Spreadsheet can have both Lotus 1-2-3(R) and Microsoft Excel
associated with it).
To enable an object to start a program, you create an association between a
Programs object and any object type not categorized as Program. In this
exercise, you will define a Programs object for Microsoft Notepad. You
will create an association between the Notepad Programs object and the Files
object type.
To create a Programs object, you will define the properties of the
object and specify the properties to be used as program parameters.
In this exercise, you will create a Programs object.
- Click Start --> Programs --> IBM DB2 -->
Information Catalog Manager -->TBC_MD Administrator.
- In the Open Information Catalog window, type the user ID that you used to
create the information catalog in the User ID field.
- In the Password field, type the password for the user
ID. The password is case-sensitive.
- Click Open
- From the Information Catalog window, right-click the Object
types icon.
- Click Open as --> Icon list.
- Right-click the icon of the Files object type.
- Click Associate programs.
The Programs window displays a list of programs currently associated with
the selected object type.
- Click Add.
The Files-Add Program window opens. The Name property is
selected.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type a
description of the program:
View files using Microsoft Notepad
- Click on the Enter push button to move the value to the
Value column in the Properties/Values list box.
If you want to erase what you entered in the Enter value for selected
property field, click on the Clear push button.
- From the Properties/Values list box, click the Class
property.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type a
classification for the program:
Word processor
- Click on the Enter push button to move the value to the
Value column in the Properties/Values list box.
- From the Properties/Values list box, click the Qualifier
1 property.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type a
qualifier for the program:
Notepad
- Click on the Enter push button to move the value to the
Value column in the Properties/Values list box.
- From the Properties/Values list box, click the Qualifier
2 property.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type a
qualifier for the program:
Windows
- Click on the Enter push button to move the value to the
Value column in the Properties/Values list box.
- From the Properties/Values list box, click the Qualifier
3 property.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type a
qualifier for the program:
-
A hyphen is the default not-applicable symbol.
- Click on the Enter push button to move the value to the
Value column in the Properties/Values list box.
- From the Properties/Values list box, click the
Identifier property.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type an
identifier for the program:
notepad.exe
- Click on the Enter push button to move the value to the
Value column in the Properties/Values list box.
The Files object is already defined for the Object type that this
program handles property.
- From the Properties/Values list box, click the Start by
invoking property.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type the
command to start the program:
START X:\path\notepad.exe
where X:\path is the path in which Microsoft Notepad is
installed, such as c:\Winnt\System32.
Tip: | The combination of the Class, Qualifiers 1, 2, and 3, and the Identifier
properties must be unique across all objects in the information
catalog. Each instance of an object type must be different.
|

In this exercise, you will specify the properties whose values you want to
be used as program parameters.
- From the Files-Add Program window, click on the Parameters push
button. The Files-Invocation Parameters window opens, listing the
properties of the File object type.
- From the Property list box, click Name.
- Click Append.
%NAME% appears in the Enter program invocation parameters list
box.

- Click OK.
- From the Files-Add Program window, click the Add push
button.
- Close the Files-Programs window.
- A message box opens in the Information Catalog Manager. Click
OK.
- Close the Object Types window.
In this exercise, you will start Microsoft Notepad from the Files
object for the demographics file. You will search for the object and
then start the program.
To start the program from the Files object:
- Double-click the New search icon in the Information Catalog
window.
The Define Search window opens.
- Scroll through the Available object types list. This
list displays all of the object types that are defined in your information
catalog.
- Select the Files object type.
- Click > to add the selected object type to the Search for
object types list.
- From the Properties/Values list, click Name.
- In the Enter value for selected property field, type the
following value:
demographics.txt
- Click Enter. The value is displayed in the
Value column of the Properties/Values list.
- Select the Ignore case check box to search all occurrences of
the value, regardless of case.
- Verify that anywhere in is selected in the Search
options list.
The Information Catalog Manager will search for objects that contain the
value that you specified in the Value column.
- Click Search. The Information Catalog Manager searches
for objects of the type that you specified and displays the results in the
Search Results window.
- From the Search Results window, right-click the
X:\sqllib\samples\db2sampl\dwc\demographics.txt
object, where X is the drive on which you installed the
sample.
- Select Start program.
The Microsoft Notepad program is launched. You see the same data
that you viewed with Microsoft Notepad in Lesson 3, Browsing the source data.
- Close all of the Information Catalog windows that are still open.
[ Top of Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Table of Contents ]