Jeff's Cluttered Mind

Using Excel files as the source for Informatica mappings can be more trouble than it's worth. You have to setup a connection and name a range in the Excel document which can be difficult to maintain. I much prefer to read text or CSV files, they're simpler to work with and less error prone. I created a VB script for the purpose of converting Excel to CSV.

Here’s the companion script for the “Using pmrep to export an Informatica folder” article. Use this script to import objects into PowerCenter.

One use for scripting an import would be to schedule it during off hours, for example moving development code to production during off hours. You may also need to export some objects, then do a "mass change" or Find/Replace on the XML file, then export them back in (for example, export all sessions, find/replace a connection).

Here's a companion tip to the "VBScript to convert CSV to XLS" post.

This script will combine two Excels files into one workbook. The files will be treated as separate worksheets inside the workbook. The worksheet names will be the same as the file names.

You may find this useful when an Inforamtica process outputs multiple flat files and you have converted them into native Excel format but only wish to present one file to the end user (or for archiving or reporting purposes).

Note: This tip is part of a series on administration scripts.

These scripts automate the process to grant permissions to PowerCenter Folders, Connections and Query objects. In my company’s PowerCenter development environment, we allow each developer to access all folders and connection objects. Our security structure is designed so all developers are in a security group, these scripts grant access to the security group.

We use this process because if a developer creates a new folder and does not grant access to the developer security group, other developers will not have access to the folder. We run these scripts daily so new folder, connection and query objects are accessible to everyone.

Sometimes you need to export the contents of a PowerCenter folder for offline storage. This post will show you how to quickly export a PowerCenter folder's contents using the pmrep command's ObjectExport function.

The nice thing about this tip is I give you a script (download here) that will export a folder's contents as individual XML files and export one XML file containing all the folder's contents. This gives you flexibility when you need to import the objects back into the repository, you can pick and choose from the individual files or import all the folder's contents with the one file.

Informatica can easily output target data in comma separated value format (CSV) but sometimes you require output formatted in native Excel.  Here's a reusable Visual Basic Script that will convert a CSV file into a nicely formatted native Excel file.

The script can be ran individually or as this tip will demonstrate, can be evoked from a PowerCenter Session's "Post-Session Success Command" property.

Here's an overview of what the script can do:

• Adjust width of the columns (auto fit)
• Sets the Header row (row 1) to Bold Font
• Freezes the Header row
• Adds Data Filters to each column of Header Row
• Sets the Header Row Background color to gray
• Saves AS native Excel format into a new file name

If you frequently use scripts to run PowerCenter commands pmrep and pmcmd, make sure you are using server environment variables for repetitive command parameters.

Benefits of using environment variables:

• Eliminate the need to change scripts when migrating from test to production.
• Reduce need to change scripts when upgrading to new version of PowerCenter.
• Better security: user id and passwords will not be in clear text. Of course you will want to restrict who can edit the server's environment variables and limit who can place scripts on your server.