👋 Introduction to the Functions Library 📂

Danny Roden
Danny Roden Administrator
edited December 2023 in Functions library

Intro

This area of the Community hosts our library of re-usable functions for use in Aperture Data Studio.

Whilst Aperture Data Studio comes with a wealth of native functions out-of-the-box, this area of Community has been established to provide a reference library of further re-usable functions that you can easily add to your Data Studio instance as and when you need them.

Functions in this space cover all manner of processing including: data conversion, transformation, cleansing, validation & more. Some even contain reference data domains / lookup tables to support with these tasks too.

Each post contains a separate package containing one or more functions, however if you’d like to get a quick overview of all the functions currently available in the Community Library, please take a look at the Index page


Importing Functions

When you find a function that is of interest to you, please follow the following steps to get it loaded into your instance of Aperture Data Studio:

  1. Download the .dmx or .dmxd file from the post (this is usually towards the bottom of the post)
  2. In your Aperture Data Studio, navigate to ‘all spaces’
  3. Identify the space you want to load the function(s) into and select ‘Import’
  4. Import the file you downloaded from Community and follow the instructions
  5. After you’ve imported it the function will be available in your specific space


FAQs

  1. How do I sharing these functions across multiple spaces?
    1. To share a function, first ensure it is Published, then select ‘Sharing Options’ from the drop down menu (and then select ‘Share with all spaces’)
  2. I’m getting an error when I try to import the .dmx / .dmxd package?
    1. Please ensure you are running a version of Data Studio which the function is compatible with (note this is documented towards the bottom of each entry in the library in the ‘Compatibility’ section). If this doesn’t solve the issue please ensure your user has appropriate permissions to import metadata (you may need to contact your local administrator to confirm this).
  3. Can I edit these functions?
    1. Yes! These functions are intended to be used as a template, so please feel free to adapt them to your requirements. After loading them into your instance of Data Studio they will appear as ‘draft’ status in your list of Functions. Feel free to click ‘edit’ and adjust accordingly.
  4. What level of testing is done on these functions?
    1. The functions uploaded to this library have been built in line with best practises, include test values (so you can visually see sample outputs) and have been through peer review.
  5. How do I request further information / suggest areas for improvement for each function?
    1. If you have any feedback or questions relating to any of these functions, please submit your feedback as a comment on the relevant post.
  6. I’ve got an idea for a new function / a function I want to share with others?
    1. Excellent! We’re really keen to hear from you, please submit an outline of your function (or function request) here and a member of our team will reach out to you to discuss further.
Tagged:

Comments

  • Slimani
    Slimani Member

    Hello,

    It seems that the process has been chganged, because few months before, we down load from an SFTP repository jar files (and not dmx files) like UnionStep-1.1.0.jar and we add them into our Aperture repository.

    Did the process change ? or is it another one


    Best regards

  • Danny Roden
    Danny Roden Administrator

    Hi @Slimani, this section of Community is about sharing functions (and other config, of standard Data Studio functionality) for others to use as templated packages (so save time in building/researching these items from scratch). For sharing object definitions and other metadata from one instance of Data Studio to another we export packages in the .dmx format (or .dmxd if it contains data). To learn more about this process of metadata exchange check out this article on our docs site.

    If you're looking to extend Data Studio to add more functionality in the form of extra steps on the workflow, then these add-ons or extensions are contained in .jar files that are placed in the installation location. To learn more about the SDK and how custom workflow steps are built and added to Data Studio check out this link on our docs site.

    As a final note and point of clarification, any importing of workflows/functions/other metadata (from a .dmx or .dmxd file) can be done from the UI without any impact on the service due to the fact that it's referencing native Data Studio functionality. However, if you're looking to extend Data Studio with extra workflow steps, then these will usually require a restart of the service to pick-up the new capability (contained within the .jar package).

  • Slimani
    Slimani Member

    Thank you Danny for your reactivity,

    It seems that what I'm looking for is an extension.

    There is a link in the community

    https://community.experianaperture.io/discussion/412/how-do-i-get-access-to-the-extension

    I have raised a question because the button "get extenson" is not working


    Once again thank you


    Best regards

    Ali

  • Tanj Jagpal
    Tanj Jagpal Administrator
    Hi @Slimani unfortunately the marketplace is no longer available, I had just missed removing the FAQs so thank you for bringing that to my attention.

    @"Danny Roden" are you able to provide some guidance as to how Ali can access extensions through the normal route?
  • Slimani
    Slimani Member

    Thank you Tanj for your reactivity.


    I'll wait Danny's response.


    For your information, in the past we got some extensions from the market place, and I want to check if there are some updates or not cause we think that we have an issu in one of theme.

    Best regards

    Ali

  • Nigel Light
    Nigel Light Contributor

    Hi @Danny Roden

    cc @Tanj Jagpal @Pavan Rao

    If I use a function, what happens when I upgrade Aperture? Will I have to remember to copy the function across to the new repository or does it get copied across automatically in some way?

    Thanks

    Nige

  • Danny Roden
    Danny Roden Administrator
    @"Nigel Light" if you’re just upgrading the server (and still referencing the same repository) then it’ll all continue to work as before the upgrade - as these functions are effectively just acting like workflows or other objects you might already have in your repo.

    Hope that helps.

    Out of interest, what functions have you found of use from this list?
  • Nigel Light
    Nigel Light Contributor

    Thanks @Danny Roden

    I would be upgrading the version of Aperture so we'll back up the repository then download a new version of the product which will load into the original repository so hopefully, from your description above, it will still be available.

    I haven't used any of the functions to date (not been developing much in Aperture this year so far) but just looking to use the "Reasonable dob" function. Looking down the list thought there are 1 or 2 which might be useful

    Regards

    Nige

  • Danny Roden
    Danny Roden Administrator
    Great. And yea that approach will be fine. These functions are all forwards compatible so when you make upgrades they’ll be fine.
  • Nigel Light
    Nigel Light Contributor

    @Danny Roden Spot on - thanks

Categories