ERwin guy new to PD needs help with domain comment inheritance

[Former Member]

IF there is a PD for Erwin users guide I have not found it, will help compile one.

Question 1 Data type / domain creation allows comments and note-description, note-annotation I can't get any to inherit into newly defined attributes.

Question 2 (Also import excel attribute works yet domain doesn't ideas?)

How is this done in PD?

PS I will be looking to avoid VB scripting and instead leverage Excel  and PD menu options  (simple stuff please)

[GeorgeMcGeachie · Accepted solution]

Hello David, welcome to PD

Sandhill have an ERwin-PD conversion course.

Question 1

Domains don't work the same way in ERwin as they do in PD - in PD they're optional, and are not intended to provide template definitions for data. It would be easy to create a script to run a model check that copies the domain description to attributes if the attribute description is blank. I have to support an ERwin conversion myself in a few weeks' time, so I might write it soon.

Question 2

I haven't had problems importing domains from Excel myself. You need to make sure they're on their own sheet, otherwise it's almost the same as importing attributes.

PS - One of the advantages of PD over ERwin and ER/Studio is the fact that you can do so much more without scripting, so I'm with you on that one

[Former Member]

George is correct. A domain in PowerDesigner is primarily a mechanism for enforcing data type consistency. The comments, descriptions and annotations fields are within the context of the domain.

Example: Date Domain:

comment=Used to store and maintain any date attribute

description= According to the ISO standard 8601 (published in 1986) the suggested format for dates is YYYY-MM-DD. YYYY is the year, MM (01 through 12) is the month, and DD (01 through 31) is the day, and hyphens (not slashes) are to be used as the separators. For example, 2005-03-01 represents first of March of the year 2005.

You would apply the date domain to the entity attribute Order Date, Hire Date, Ship Date etc. It is the entity attribute or data item that contains the contextual definition enforced through the data domain.

Example: Order Date

Comment= The date on which an order was placed (yes its a tautology, I know, but its a short pithy description)

Description= A recorded point in time by which confirmed request by one party to another to buy, sell, deliver, or receive goods or services under specified terms and conditions. When accepted by the receiving party, an order date becomes part of a legally binding contract.

PD has a glossary and data items that support definitions and standard abbreviations. A domain in ERwin is trying to do two things at the same time. Data quality, enforced through data items and glossary as well as data type consistency enforced through domains

Hope this clarifies things a bit.