Exporting data to another PowerDesigner Model

Chapter 4 Building Business Process Diagrams

Exporting data to another PowerDesigner Model

You can only export data that are not already linked to an external model object and the target model must be open in the workspace.

Data export

You can export BPM data objects to other PowerDesigner models as follows:

Data type	CDM	PDM	OOM
Undefined	Data item or entity. [BPM Elementary data or Structured data]	Table [BPM Structured data]	Class [BPM Structured data].
Elementary	Data item	—	—
Structured	Entity	Table	Class

If you export a data object that has the same name and code as an object already existing in the target model, the data will be linked to the existing object.

Sub-data export

You can export BPM sub-data objects to other PowerDesigner models.

If you explicitly select a sub-data object without its parent, the same export rules as for data object export apply, as sub-data are also data.

If you select a sub-data object with its parent structured data object, the following rules apply:

Data type	CDM	PDM	OOM
Undefined	Data item and entity attribute or Entity and relationship or association Table and column Class and attribute	Table and column Class and attribute	Class and attribute
Elementary	Data item and entity attribute Table and column, if you select a Structured data containing Elementary sub-data Class and attribute, if you select a Structured data containing Elementary sub-data	Table and column, if you select a Structured data containing Elementary sub-data Class and attribute, if you select a Structured data containing Elementary sub-data	Class and attribute, if you select a Structured data containing Elementary sub-data
Structured	Entity and relationship or association Table and reference link Class and association link	Table and reference link Class and association link	Class and association link

A class attribute or a table column cannot be shared, but sub-data objects can be shared by several data object parents. When you export an elementary or undefined sub-data object as an attribute in the OOM or as a column in the PDM, the link between the sub-data object and the definition object is not saved in the Definition box of its property sheet.

Link export

You can export the link between the parent data objects and the sub-data objects to other PowerDesigner models as follows:

CDM	PDM	OOM
Relationship or Merise association if the relationship is not allowed. The cardinality value is 0,1 on both extremities.	Reference link. The cardinality value is 1,1 on both extremities.	Association link

To export data to another PowerDesigner model:

Select Tools→Data Export Wizard to open the Data Export Wizard, which list all the models and packages open in the workspace to which you can export data.

Select the target model or package to which you want to export data and click Next to go to a data selection page, which lists all the data available to export.

[CDM only] When you export undefined data or sub-data to a CDM, the wizard prompts you to specify whether you want to export them as data items or entities. Select an object type and click Next to select data to export.

Select the data to export, and then click Finish to begin the data export.

The data is exported to the target model. The result of the export is displayed in the Output window. You can view in the Browser the target model and its new objects:

Data re-export
You cannot export a data object more than once. If you want to re-export a data object, you must first delete either the link to the external object or the external object itself.