Informatica Transformations
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Types of Transformations in Informatica
In Informatica, Transformations help to transform the source data according to the requirements of target system and it ensures the
quality of the data being loaded into target.
Transformations are of two types: Active and Passive.
Active Transformation
An active transformation Filter transformation can change the number of rows that pass through it from source to target i.e it eliminates
rows that do not meet the condition in transformation.
The following are the list of active transformations used for processing the data
   Source quilter transformation
   Ruler transformation
   Rank Transformation
   Sorter transformation
   Joiner transformation
   Union Transformation
   Aggrater Transformation
   Transaction control transformation
   Normalize transformation
   Update strategy transformation
   SQL Transformation
Passive Transformation
A passive transformation does not change the number of rows that pass trough it i.e it passes all rows through the transformation.
Transformations can be Connected or Unconnected.  The no of rows entering the transformation is same as no of rows exist the
transformation. It doesn’t e ect  the no of rows
The following are the list of passive transformations used for processing data.
   Expression transformation
   Sequence generated transformation
   Stored procedure transformation
   Look up transformation
   XML source quali er transformation
   SQL Transformation.
Data ow Diagram Active, Passive Transformations                                                                                            
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Portland types of ports
A port represent column of a table (or) le. There are two basic type of ports.
   Input port:-
A ort which can receive the data is know as input port which is represented as :”I”
   Output Port:-
A port which can provide the data is know as output port which is represented as “o”.
Connected Transformation
Connected transformation is connected to other transformations or directly to target table in the mapping.
A transformation which is part of mapping data ow direction is known as connected transformation. It is connected the source and
connected to the target. All active and passive transformation can be re ned as connected transformation. A connected transformation
can receive multiple input ports, can provide the multiple output ports.
UnConnected Transformation
An unconnected transformation is not connected to other transformations in the mapping. It is called within another transformation, and
returns a value to that transformation.
A transformation which is not part of mapping data ow direction is known as unconnected transformations.  It is nether connected to
source nor connected to the target. An unconnected transformation can receive the multiple input ports, but provides “single output port”.
The following transformations can be de ned as unconnected
                                                                                                                                            
   Stored procedure transformation
   Lookup transformation
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Following are the list of Transformations available in Informatica:
   Aggregator Transformation                                                                       Drop us a Query                       
   Expression Transformation
   Filter Transformation                                                                            E-mail Address *
   Joiner Transformation
   Lookup Transformation                                                                             US (+1)     Phone *
   Normalizer Transformation
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   Rank Transformation                                                                                                                   
   Router Transformation
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   Sequence Generator Transformation
   Stored Procedure Transformation
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   Sorter Transformation
   Update Strategy Transformation
   XML Source Quali er Transformation
   Advanced External Procedure Transformation
   External Transformation
In the following pages, we will explain all the above Informatica Transformations and their signi cances in the ETL process in detail.
Aggregator Transformation
Aggregator transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. This transformation is useful to perform calculations such as
averages and sums (mainly to perform calculations on multiple rows or groups). For example, to calculate total of daily sales or to
calculate average of monthly or yearly sales. Aggregate functions such as AVG, FIRST, COUNT, PERCENTILE, MAX, SUM etc. can be used in
aggregate transformation.
Expression Transformation
Expression transformation is a Passive and Connected transformation. This can be used to calculate values in a single row before writing to
the target. For example, to calculate discount of each product or to concatenate rst and last names or to convert date to a string eld.
Filter Transformation
Filter transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. This can be used to lter rows in a mapping that do not meet the
condition. For example, to know all the employees who are working in Department 10 or to nd out the products that falls between the rate
category $500 and $1000.
Joiner Transformation
Joiner Transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. This can be used to join two sources coming from two di erent
locations or from same location. For example, to join a at le and a relational source or to join two at les or to join a relational source
and a XML source.
In order to join two sources, there must be atleast one matching port. at least one matching port. While joining two sources it is a must to
specify one source as master and the other as detail.
The Joiner transformation supports the following types of joins:
   Normal
   Master Outer
   Detail Outer
   Full Outer
Normal join discards all the rows of data from the master and detail source that do not match, based on the condition.
Master outer join discards all the unmatched rows from the master source and keeps all the rows from the detail source and the matching
rows from the master source.
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Detail outer join keeps all rows of data from the master source and the matching rows from the detail source. It discards the unmatched
rows from the detail source.
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Full outer join keeps all rows of data from both the master and detail sources.
Lookup Transformation                                                                               E-mail Address *
Lookup transformation is Passive and it can be both Connected and Unconnected as well. It is used to look up data in a relational table,
view, or synonym. Lookup de nition can be imported either from source or from target tables.   US (+1)   Phone *
For example, if we want to retrieve all the sales of a product with an ID 10 and assume that the sales data resides in another table. Here
instead of using the sales table as one more source, use Lookup transformation to lookup the dataMessage
                                                                                                  for the product, with ID 10 in sales table.
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Di erence between Connected andUSAUnConnected
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Lookup Transformation
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Connected lookup receives input values directly from mapping pipeline whereas UnConnected lookup    - +91values
                                                                                                 receives  905 from:
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                                                                                                                     LKP expression
from another transformation.
Connected lookup returns multiple columns from the same row whereas UnConnected lookup has one return port and returns one column
from each row.
Connected lookup supports user-de ned default values whereas UnConnected lookup does not support user de ned values.
Normalizer Transformation
Normalizer Transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It is used mainly with COBOL sources where most of the time data
is stored in de-normalized format. Also, Normalizer transformation can be used to create multiple rows from a single row of data.
Rank Transformation
Rank transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It is used to select the top or bottom rank of data. For example, to select
top 10 Regions where the sales volume was very high or to select 10 lowest priced products.
Router Transformation
Router is an Active and Connected transformation. It is similar to lter transformation. The only di erence is, lter transformation drops the
data that do not meet the condition whereas router has an option to capture the data that do not meet the condition. It is useful to test
multiple conditions. It has input, output and default groups. For example, if we want to lter data like where State=Michigan, State=California,
State=New York and all other States. It’s easy to route data to di erent tables.
Sequence Generator Transformation
Sequence Generator transformation is a Passive and Connected transformation. It is used to create unique primary key values or cycle
through a sequential range of numbers or to replace missing keys.
It has two output ports to connect transformations. By default it has two elds CURRVAL and NEXTVAL(You cannot add ports to this
transformation). NEXTVAL port generates a sequence of numbers by connecting it to a transformation or target. CURRVAL is the NEXTVAL
value plus one or NEXTVAL plus the Increment By value.
Stored Procedure Transformation
Stored Procedure transformation is a Passive and Connected & UnConnected transformation. It is useful to automate time-consuming
tasks and it is also used in error handling, to drop and recreate indexes and to determine the space in database, a specialized calculation
etc.
The stored procedure must exist in the database before creating a Stored Procedure transformation, and the stored procedure can exist in
a source, target, or any database with a valid connection to the Informatica Server. Stored Procedure is an executable script with SQL
statements and control statements, user-de ned variables and conditional statements.
Sorter Transformation
Sorter transformation is a Connected and an Active transformation. It allows to sort data either in ascending or descending order
according to a speci ed eld. Also used to con gure for case-sensitive sorting, and specify whether the output rows should be distinct. 
Source Quali er Transformation
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Source Quali er transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. When adding a relational or a at le source de nition to a
mapping, it is must to connect it to a Source Quali er transformation. The Source Quali er performs the various tasks such as overriding
default SQL query, ltering records; join data from two or more tables etc.                     Drop us a Query                      
Update Strategy Transformation                                                                   E-mail Address *
Update strategy transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It is used to update data in target table, either to maintain
history of data or recent changes. You can specify how to treat source rows in table, insert, update, delete or data driven.
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XML Source Quali er Transformation                                                               Message
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XML Source Quali er is a Passive and Connected transformation. XML Source Quali er is used only with an XML source de nition. It
represents the data elements that the Informatica Server reads when it executes a session with XML sources.
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Advanced External Procedure Transformation
Advanced External Procedure transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It operatesIND      - +91Contact
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                                                                                                                        Usprocedures,
are created outside of the Designer interface to extend PowerCenter/PowerMart functionality. It is useful in creating external
transformation applications, such as sorting and aggregation, which require all input rows to be processed before emitting any output rows.
External Procedure Transformation
External Procedure transformation is an Active and Connected/UnConnected transformations. Sometimes, the standard transformations
such as Expression transformation may not provide the functionality that you want. In such cases External procedure is useful to develop
complex functions within a dynamic link library (DLL) or UNIX shared library, instead of creating the necessary Expression transformations
in a mapping.
Di erences between Advanced External Procedure and
External Procedure Transformations
External Procedure returns single value, whereas Advanced External Procedure returns multiple values.
External Procedure supports COM and Informatica procedures whereas AEP supports only Informatica Procedures.
Following articles describing the ETL Tool Transformation Manager(TM) has been sourced from ETL Solutions Ltd. If you need more
information, please visit their o cial website www.ETLsolutions.com or contact them at info@etlsolutions.com.
ETL Solution's product "Transformation Manager(TM)" is a stand-alone Windows® or Linux® software suite of meta-data driven code
generator programs that provides for the authoring, testing, and debugging of data transforms between virtually all types of data, whether
XML, databases, at les, Java™ classes or spreadsheets, with exible deployment options in both J2EE™ and Microsoft®.NET architectures.
References
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