Curate Registered Assets

1 Introduction

Owners of data sources, Curators, and Mendix Admins can curate registered assets. Curation in the Catalog is the process of enriching the metadata and providing further information about the exposed data sources, datasets and attributes, and deleting irrelevant or outdated data sources. You can add custom application icons, Catalog-specific descriptions, and tags to supplement the registered metadata. Curate functions in the Catalog include setting the Discoverability of data sources, indicating whether the data source is validated, and specifying the Business and Technical Owners.

Users who can curate assets in the Catalog are as follows:

• Owners of a registered service – can curate their own services which include those that have been set to non-Discoverable
• Curators and Mendix Admins – can curate and find all registered assets in the Catalog

Owners and Curators can also get an overview of the registered assets they own and curate from the Curate tab in the Catalog.

2 Curate List

Owners and curators of registered assets can click Curate from the Catalog home page to see the Curation List screen which provides an overview of all the registered assets that you can curate as an owner under the My Assets tab. Curators will also see the Company Assets tab that lists all the registered assets:

In both cases, the list includes registered data sources and also individual datasets that are exposed for the data source.

You can search for specific assets by entering a search string in the search bar or Filter By: Environment or Validated assets.

The list can also be sorted by any of the columns by clicking on the column header.

Click View to display the asset details. You can then perform curate actions to add Catalog specific information to the asset metadata.

3 Curation Bar

Curation is performed from the asset details screen. If you are an owner of an asset or are a curator, you will see the Curation Bar for the selected item.

When a data source is selected in the Search Results, you can do the following after clicking Edit:

• Edit Metadata – edit the description of the data source and datasets, add tags, or specify business and technical owners and add change the application icon
• Discoverable/Validated – set the Discoverable and Validated settings for the data source from the drop-down menu
  • Discoverable – defines whether the service is visible and can be found (and consumed) by users of the Catalog; if a service is set to Non-discoverable, only the owners of the service (Business and Technical) and curators can find the registered data source
  • Validate – indicates that the data source and datasets have been validated
• Remove Data Source – allows Owners to remove their own data sources, while Curators or Admins can remove any data sources in the company

When a dataset is selected in the Search Results, the Edit Dataset Details option is displayed for editing the dataset and attribute descriptions.

4 Editing the Metadata of an App

The curate functions that are available for a selected data source are to change Application Details or Data Source Details. This section describes the application details that can be changed: changing owners or changing the application icon.

You can curate Application Details from the Application Details screen as follows:

1. In the Curation Bar click Edit > Edit Metadata > Application Details.

2. The Application Metadata screen is displayed:

   

4.1 Changing Owners of an App

The Business Owners and Technical Owners are displayed as a link in the asset Metadata pane so that users can contact them through the email that is provided for them.

By default, the Technical Owner for a registered asset is the user who registered the data source when registration is done through the deployment pipeline in Studio Pro. The owners can also be specified during manual registration using one of the connectors in the Catalog Home and also when registering assets using the Catalog API.

4.1.1 Changing the Business and Technical Owners of an App

To change the Business Owner or Technical Owner, from the Application Metadata screen, click in the name field of the Business or Technical owner. You can start typing or select from the drop-down list of names. Mendix Platform users will be displayed with their avatar and custom owners will be shown with an avatar that displays their initials.

The Technical Owner can only be changed in Control Center, not within the Catalog. See the Custom Owners section of Catalog Administration.

4.1.2 Adding a Custom Owner

When curating the owners of an application, you can specify a Business Owner who is not a registered Mendix user but is a technical contact point for the application or the owner of the data that is made available in the app. The name and the contact email must be provided.

Curators can manage the lists of custom owners as an Administration task. For more details, see the Owners section of Catalog Administration.

To add a custom Business Owner, follow these steps:

1. On the Application Metadata screen, if you start typing the name of an owner and it is not in the drop-down list, you will be prompted to Create it. Click on the prompt and the Enter New Custom Owner Details pop-up is displayed.

2. Enter the Name and Email of the owner and click Save.

   When you create or select a custom owner for an application, this will be displayed in the Asset Metadata pane as a link to the email specified. Custom owners will have curate or access rights to the Catalog or the asset in the Catalog. Only Mendix users that are added as an owner can curate assets they own.

3. Click Save to return to the Application Metadata screen. Click Save Changes to return to the asset details screen where the changes will be displayed in Metadata pane.

4.2 Changing the App Icon

You can change the icon that is displayed for the app and the data source by uploading your own custom application icon or selecting one from the icon library. The selected icon will be displayed for all endpoints of the application and data source such as the Catalog search results and also in the Mendix Studio Pro Integration pane.

When you change an application icon, all data sources that are registered in the Catalog for that application will show the new icon.

Currently, by default, the application icon is determined by the application type when the data source is registered. For example, for Mendix apps the Mendix Icon is displayed which identifies the technology of the source app.

4.2.1 Uploading a Custom Icon Image File

When you want to upload a custom icon or image, the following apply:

• The accepted file types are .png, .jpg, and .jpeg

• The maximum accepted file size is 50 KB

• The minimum recommended size of the image is 64 pixels x 64 pixels. You can crop larger images and files, and select the area you want to display during the upload operation.

  If smaller images are selected, they will be expanded to meet the 64 x 64 size which may result in degradation of image quality. Ensure that your original file meets the recommendations for an optimal display.

• Custom icons that are uploaded will be saved to the Icon Library and can be used for other apps.

To upload a different icon for the app follow these steps:

1. In the Application Metadata screen of the selected data source, click Upload a different icon to display the Upload Application Icon pop up:

   

2. Drag the image file into the upload area or click Upload to browse and select a file from your file system. Click Step 2: Crop image to proceed.

3. Move the wire-frame to select an area of the loaded image and change the size of the wire-frame to crop the image to the area that you want to use. When you are satisfied, click Apply Changes.

   For high-resolution images, if the selected are exceeds the size limit there will be a warning. Select a smaller area of the image to reduce the file size.

4. A preview of the application icon is shown. Click Save to upload the selected icon.

   

5. The Application Metadata screen will now show the selected icon for the application:

   

6. Click Save Changes to return to the data source details page. The custom icon will be stored in the Icon Library.

4.2.2 Selecting an Icon from the Library

An alternative to uploading an icon is to use an existing icon by clicking select one from your library. The icons for your Catalog will be shown and you can select one and click Change Icon.

5 Editing the Metadata of a Data Source

You can curate data sources to add a Catalog description and add tags.

5.1 Adding or Editing a Catalog Description

If a description was included in the metadata contract, this will be displayed in the asset details screen for the selected data source. You can add a description or edit an existing description for the Catalog. They are included in searches.

You can specify if the service Contract Description or the Catalog Description is displayed in the Catalog.

To edit the asset metadata, follow these steps:

1. In the Curation Bar, click Edit > Edit Metadata > Service Details to display the Service Metadata box:

   

2. The description from the service metadata is displayed in the Contract Description. This cannot be changed, as it is part of the service definition. You can provide an alternative description by toggling Use the catalog description to display the Catalog Description box:

   

3. Add a catalog description. This will be stored with the service details in the Catalog.

4. Click Save Changes to save the changes that you have made to the Edit Service Metadata screen and return to the Service Details screen, which will now display the selected description.

5.2 Adding or Editing Tags to a Service

Add tags to categorize a registered service and provide additional means for finding the service. Tags that are specified for a service also apply to the datasets and attributes that are exposed in the service. Specify tags for the selected service by following these steps:

1. In the Search Details screen of a selected service, click Edit > Edit Metadata > Service Details in the Curation Bar to display the Service Metadata box.

2. To add tags, click the empty Tag input area:

   

3. To add or edit the tags, enter a tag string and press Enter or select one from the list of existing tags that are used in the Catalog and displayed when you start typing in the Tag field. To separate multiple tags, use spaces.

   Tags can only contain lower-case letters, numbers, and underscores. They must have a minimum of 2 characters. If you use capital letters when typing the tag string, they will be converted to lower-case.

4. You can enter multiple tags separated by spaces. You can remove tags by clicking the .

5. When you are finished specifying the tags, click Save Changes to register the changes and the tags will be shown in the Service Metadata pane.

5.3 Adding Authentication to a Service

Publishers of a data source can let consuming developers know what they will need to identify themselves when consuming a data source. Add this later if not configured during the registration step.

For a description of supported authentication methods, see the Selecting an Authentication Method section of Register OData Resources in the Catalog.

6 Discoverable and Validated

The discoverable and validated properties of registered assets can be set from the Curate bar for the selected asset.

6.1 Discoverable

The discoverability is set at a data source level. When a data source is registered in the Catalog, Discoverable is set to the company default value, which is configured by the Mendix Admin in Control Center. If Discoverable is on for a data source, all users can find the asset and see the details of it. The Discoverable setting will apply to all datasets that are exposed in the data source.

When the Discoverable setting is turned off, it will only be visible to the owners of the service and curators and the Mendix Admin. All other users of the Catalog (also through the Catalog integrations in Studio Pro) will not be able to see an asset whose discoverability is turned off.

When a data source is set to non-Discoverable, the data source, and the datasets that are exposed cannot be found by other users (except by owners and curators). However, there may be instances of the same datasets in the Catalog, from the same apps, that are available through other discoverable services.

To change the discoverability of a service, follow these steps:

1. In the Catalog, select the service to display the Search Details.
2. If you have curation rights, the Curation Bar is displayed. Click the drop-down Edit menu and then the Discoverable toggle to turn it on or off.

A message is displayed to indicate the discoverability of the asset and the discoverability icon is updated in the search results and the data source details.

6.2 Validated

The Validated property can be assigned to a data source or a dataset to indicate, for example, that it has been qualified and is a reliable asset. You can turn it on and off by clicking the Validate toggle. A validated data source or dataset is indicated by the validation shield on the data source details screen and also in the search results pane.

Setting an asset as Validated contributes to the weighting of the asset in the search results. This means that Validated assets will be listed before unvalidated assets in the results.

7 Deleting a Data Source

Owners of a data source can delete their own data sources. Anyone with curation rights (Mendix Admins or Curators) can delete any data sources within the company. This ensures that their Catalog is free of outdated or irrelevant data sources.

Deleting something from Catalog only removes the metadata registration. It does not affect the publishing application or any of the applications that are consuming the data source.

To delete a data source, go to the Curation Bar for the data source and click Edit, then click Remove Data Source.