User Guides

TM’s documentation set, shown in the diagram below, is structured hierarchically, with documents aimed at specific types of user.

The product distribution includes,

For the User:

  • TM Basics which contains step-by-step instructions for developing transformation projects that illustrate both general principles and specific techniques.
  • TM Features which describes a number of individual features to be found in TM. It is a self-contained tutorial-style introduction to some of the more advanced features and is intended to supplement TM Basics.
  • TM Deployment which explains how to deploy transforms generated by TM.

These three documents constitute the primary user guides to TM, and it is strongly advised that the user begin with these documents in order to gain a sound knowledge of TM and its use.

  • TM Built-in Functions which describes the functions available in TM and helps the user select the appropriate function.

For the Administrator:

  • Installation Guide which provides Windows and UNIX installation instructions for TM.
  • Properties Editor Guide which describes how users may edit and extend the properties stored in the lax files generated when installing TM.

For the Data Modeller:

  • Patterns Guide which is an advanced guide describing patterns of use for solving common transformation problems.

For the Database Expert:

  • Database Guide which provides an introduction on how to use TM to transform data to a database efficiently.

For the Advanced User:

  • Configurable Flat File Adapters Guide which describes a set of adapters that are easily configurable by non-Java consultants and data experts, and which access the most common formats of Comma Separated Variable (CSV) or Flat Files.

Please note that this document is not available for this release.

Transformation Manager provides in-built adapters to access XML files, Relational Databases and Java Classes. In addition, two Open Interfaces are provided to support the loading of any model and the accessing of instance data. The relevant guides are:

  • Loader Open Interface Guide which describes an interface to load models into the Transformation Manager repository;
  • Instance Data Open Interface Guide which describes an interface to access any form of data.

Please note that these two documents are not available for this release.

Java documentation is provided as part of the release for all the Transformation Manager’s interface packages.

Release Notes which outline any new features and known issues in the current release are also included.