Welcome to the Master Data Designer Tutorial! This tutorial is designed specifically for users getting started with the Master Data Designer.
This comprehensive tutorial empowers you with the knowledge and skills needed to navigate and utilize the capabilities of the Master Data Designer effectively. The user guide comes with a series of videos that show you how to use the tool with concrete examples. Learning is most effective when you participate actively, so we invite you to follow along, and explore the tool firsthand.
The Master Data Designer combines version management for structured data with data design and validation features as well as a collaboration platform. Users can configure the tool in a few steps in order to manage, edit and compare complex, structured data in multiple versions, to check for consistency based on rules, and to export in different formats for different users and third-party systems at the push of a button.
The Master Data Designer is focused on the needs of data designers, with the aim of simplifying their work and ensuring high data quality in their company.
In subsequent chapters, you will learn a variety of different aspects of the tool, so that you can use the Master Data Designer as effectively as possible.
The content of this tutorial is continuously expanded. We appreciate any kind of feedback from our users.
CHAPTER 1: MDD Basics
Login, task groups, and selection view
Datasets and dimensions
Versions and snapshots
Views
Standard
Big Sets
Delta
Filtering functionalities, non-compliance to rules (i.e. consistency and propagation conflicts)
Exporting data
Raw
Templates
CHAPTER 2: MDD Advanced
Creating new versions and taking snapshots
In this chapter, you will learn the basics of how to use the Master Data Designer. The chapter covers the login process, the management of the available data, as well as understanding the two concept of version control - namely, versions and snapshots. Readers will become familiar with the system's filtering capabilities and how to handle scenarios of non-compliance with rules and conflicts. Different ways of viewing the data will be explained, so you can tailor the system based on your current assignment. Last but not least, the chapter delves into how to export the data, which can be either done in raw format or by using templates.
In this video, we show you how to log into the Master Data Designer. To follow along, please hold your login credentials ready. Different users are in different task groups - ultimately having access permissions such as read-only, write, and admin. After having logged into the tool, you find yourself in the main menu, where you have an overview over all available datasets and functionalities.
The Master Data Designer is capable of holding several datasets. Each dataset can contain multiple tables that are in some way related to each other. For this tutorial, we have set up our own Demo dataset, which is in our particular case a Group Chart of Accounts. After selecting a particular dataset and the table of interest (with the respective version), you can view all data, densely formatted.
As data might change regularly, it is desirable to have version control in place to reliable track changes and differences. This subchapter sheds light on two core concepts when talking about version control: versions and snapshots.
A version represents an object of data, and its name usually represents the date of validity. It is important to note that changes made in an earlier version propagate and change the data also in subsequent versions.
A snapshot reflects a specific state of a particular version at a particular timepoint. You can take a snapshot of any point in time - from the current state as it is to an arbitrary timepoint in the past. Due to the audit trail, the Master Data Designer can retrieve any past state, which prevents any possibility of data loss.
Master Data Designers offers several ways to display the data. Using Standard View, the data is formatted as a table, and potentially can be structured hierarchically. The Big Sets enables the users to quickly analyze data and use available filter functionalities. The Delta View lets users easily distinguish differences between versions.
The Master Data Designer offers various powerful filtering functionalities to acquire a deep understanding of the data. Filter functionalities can be applied on tables as well as on matrices, i.e. big sets. This video shows you several ways to filter the data in various ways, depending on its format. Data consistency can be an important aspect when maintaining data. Thus, specific rules can be configured, which are then steadily checked in the background when using the Master Data Designer. Any non-compliance to consistency checks can be viewed and inspected by hovering over the fields marked in red. What is more, a propagation conflict arises when a specific field is modified in a version and the same field is subsequently altered in a previous version. The system then does not know whether the change should be propagated or the original state should be kept. Such propagation conflicts can easily be detected by fields marked in yellow.
The curated data can be used across various systems. The Master Data Designer offers an export functionality in order to communicate and transfer the data effectively. The curated data can be exported in two ways: raw or by using a predefined template. A template specifies how the data should be structured and formatted, specifically targeted for particular users and third-party systems.
If you do not have templates at your disposal for your purposes, please reach out to your administrator, so you will be equipped with the necessary documents.
In this chapter, you will learn some of Master Data Designer's advanced functionalities. You will master how you create new versions and take snapshots, which you could use to revert a current version to any past state. Additionally, you will gain proficiency in changing views and schemas of your data. Further, you will gain insights into data importing and configuring checks to ensure data consistency. Last but not least, you will explore the console's capabilities for conducting ad-hoc analyses.
In a preceding chapter, we covered two fundamental concepts of version control: versions and snapshots. In this video, we will explore the process of creating a new version for a table of your choosing. As we know from previous lessons, snapshots can be taken of any timepoint from the past, right up to the present moment. In this lesson, you will gain insights into the precise methods for specifying and capturing such snapshots at your desired timepoints.