TopBraid EDG–Reference Data Management
(EDG–RDM)
Bring consistency and accuracy to the use of reference data across enterprise applications
Simplify the management and distribution of reference data throughout your organization
Reference data is found in practically every enterprise application including back-end systems, front-end commerce applications, and the data warehouse. TopBraid EDG–RDM makes it easy to bring consistency and accuracy to reference data management and use.
Reference data has a major impact on everything from the integrity of business intelligence reports to the success or failure of system integration efforts. EDG–RDM simplifies the management and distribution of reference data with simple point-and-click interfaces. EDG–RDM provides all the services you need to secure the benefits of centralized management of reference data – change in one place, publish to many.
Why TopBraid EDG–RDM?
Mission-critical applications like product lifecycle management (PLM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and customer relationship management (CRM) use reference data to classify and categorize business critical data such as product and customer information.
The underlying challenge is that code tables are typically defined and managed on an application-by-application basis, and the content, format, representation and meaning of the codes within the code tables differs within each application.
TopBraid EDG–RDM lets organizations:
- Lower risk – by providing auditability, provenance, and security of reference data
- Decrease costs – by minimizing chances of costly errors associated with manual, ad hoc processes and misinterpretation
- Succeed in the data-driven world – by putting management of reference data into the hands of business users
How Can TopBraid EDG–RDM Help?
- Reduce independent maintenance of code tables – Provides a central system where reference data will “live” and be maintained. With this, maintenance activities like adding new codes are done once, not multiple times, reducing authoring time and effort in making changes to reference data.
- Reduce data quality problems due to coding errors – Allows end users who use reference data (codes) in the process of data entry to better understand their meaning and, as a result, avoid mistakes of using wrong codes.
- Reduce data integration issues due to inconsistent codes – When code tables used by different systems are maintained independently, they become inconsistent across the systems. This lack of consistency impacts the ability to integrate data. TopBraid EDG-RDM provides an up-to-date source that can be used as input for every code table in every database in the production landscape. Consistency is achieved and integration promoted.
- Make informed decisions based on reference data – Enables the right categorization and organization of data in reporting and analytics by providing a place for report writers to go to better understand the meaning of reference data and how it is used across the different systems.
- Reduce the cost of designing code tables for databases – Provides a central system database administrators can go to get exports of “codes tables” with all the fields they may need.
TopBraid EDG–Reference Data Management lets its users create, connect and use an enterprise knowledge graph consisting of:
- Reference Datasets – controlled datasets of industry defined codes (country and currency codes, and product types). Reference data is found in many enterprise applications including back-end systems, front-end commerce applications, and data warehouses. In EDG, classes for respective reference datasets are defined in corresponding ontologies.
- Ontologies – vocabularies that contain schema-level information — definitions of classes, properties and rules. They are knowledge models that can be used to generate data models (for example) or are simply used as for various purposes as important documentation and reference for the business stakeholders. In EDG, they can be used as conceptual models that can connect terms with the technical metadata (e.g., tables and columns).
- Crosswalks – datasets that link terms in one vocabulary with the matching terms in another one.
- Enumerations – suitable for storing multiple, relatively small and simple codesets in a single asset collection. An example may be gender codes or age group codes. For larger and richer sets of codes, use reference datasets.
Overcome Reference Data Management Challenges
TopBraid EDG–Reference Data Management provides the benefits of managing reference data within a comprehensive, collaborative and extensible data governance environment. It can distribute governed reference data to all relevant systems or used as a real-time source of reference data. Its key features include:
Intuitive Graphical User Interface – with auto-completion, drag and drop and rich text editing.
Hierarchy Management – hierarchical as well as tabular views of reference data.
Flexible Data Model – beyond managing only codes and descriptions, users can define any number of custom attributes and relationships across their reference data. Keep metadata about reference datasets including their source, usage and semantics.
Audit Trails – every change is logged and time stamped, change history can be searched, changes can be rolled back if desired.
Process Automation – pre-built and custom workflows with associated virtual work-in-progress copies to support reference data update, review and approval, publishing and distribution processes.
Configurable Governance Roles – for business areas and data domains as well as for individual reference datasets
Reporting and Dashboards – Built-in reports and configurable role-based governance metrics. Advanced query-building tools and reporting through graphical interfaces. Visual dashboards to explore and drill down lineage, traceability and impact information.
Search – simple lookups and advanced search, saved searches and search services.
Reference Data Quality Rules – custom validation rules to enforce best practices and ensure high quality of your reference data.
Data Validation Services – check your operational databases for compliance with reference data..
Crosswalk Services – services for lookup and conversion from one system of codes to another.
Automation of Linking – Crosswalks between reference datasets can be auto-generated.
Import/Export – Import/Export from Spreadsheets, XML, Databases, SPARQL and GraphQL endpoints, RDF/OWL.
Native Support for Semantic Standards – Built-in support for W3C standards such as RDF,SPARQL, SHACL and OWL. RESTful and GraphQL APIs.
Enterprise-readiness – Easily extensible, highly scalable and robust architecture with high availability, single sign-on through LDAP/Active Directory integration, integration with enterprise systems through built-in connectors, web services and JMS.
Explore TopBraid EDG-RDM
DATA SHEET: TOPBRAID EDG–REFERENCE DATA MANAGEMENT
Learn how to bring consistency and accuracy to the use of reference data across all enterprise applications.
VIDEOS: TOPBRAID EDG–REFERENCE DATA MANAGEMENT
Learn how to centralize the management and distribution of reference data is to unify the enterprise information landscape.
WHITE PAPER: THE FOUNDATIONS OF SUCCESSFUL RDM
Learn about best practices and fundamental capabilities that should be a part of any modern RDM solution.
More Details on TopBraid EDG–Reference Data Management
WEBPAGE: TOPBRAID EDG ASSET COLLECTION TYPES
Learn about different types of knowledge graphs that organize the way you can manage a complete range of assets and use cases.
WHITE PAPER: MATURING INFORMATION GOVERNANCE WITH TOPBRAID EDG
Learn why maturing enterprise information management (EIM) requires establishing and maturing information governance practices.