A grouping of objects, such as catalogs, hierarchies, or selections, with a defined set of role-based privileges for viewing or modifying the data on the entries within those objects.

See access control group.

See administration service.

A Java™ virtual machine (JVM) service that starts and stops modules on remote machines.

See selection.

See import.

A Java virtual machine (JVM) service inside the Web container of the application server that serves JavaServer Pages (JSP) for the user interface.

1. A characteristic or trait of an entity that describes the entity; for example, the telephone number of an employee is one of that employee's attributes.

2. A data field on an item or category that has an attribute definition and any number of attribute instances. See also attribute definition, attribute instance.

A named group of attributes that can be specified exactly or that can be specified by reference to the containing specification. Attribute collections can be used to determine which attributes are accessible and validated in a given workflow step, catalog, or hierarchy views, and when setting privileges on a catalog or hierarchy.

The description of a field, such as its data type, validation rules, or the allowed number of occurrences. Attribute definitions are specified in a specification, which can be applied to a container (catalog or hierarchy) or category, whose entries can then have instances of those attributes. Previously called spec node or node.

The value or potential value of a field for an entry. Each attribute instance for an entry corresponds to an attribute definition in the specification of the container of that entry.

The specification in an attribute definition of the kind of data that can be stored in an instance of an attribute. Examples include simple data types, such as string or number, as well as more complex data types like currency or date.

A type of container that stores items. An item can belong to only one catalog. Each catalog must be associated with at least one hierarchy, the primary hierarchy, and can be associated with one or more secondary hierarchies. See also hierarchy and item.

A classification of an item. Hierarchies are made up of categories and items. Items in a catalog can be associated to one or more categories from the specifications of the catalog. Items can also be unassigned, which is their default state, which means they are not in any category yet. Every hierarchy has exactly one root category. Every category can have any number of additional categories within it, called sub-categories. See also hierarchy.

An attribute instance on a category. The attribute is defined in the specification of the owning hierarchy or by a secondary specification associated to that category. See also attribute instance.

See hierarchy.

An attribute instance that applies to an item because of the presence of that item in a given category. A secondary specification with additional attributes is applied to that category, and all items in that category gain those extra fields. See also attribute instance.

A runtime instance of a workflow for a specific hierarchy or catalog. A collaboration area provides a staging area where entries from that container can be modified without affecting the original entry. These changes can be copied back to the original or discarded when the entry completes the workflow. Each collaboration area must be associated with a workflow (but not vice versa).

The data model and content for a particular business unit or enterprise that can be used to manage, link, and synchronize product information both internally and externally.

A user interface that allows you to list and manage objects or entities, such as catalogs, hierarchies, and items.

An object that holds entries. A container can be a catalog, containing items, a hierarchy, containing categories, or a collaboration area, which hold items or categories only (depending on the type of the container with which it is associated). See also hierarchy.

A system-defined attribute collection that groups all mandatory, primary key, or path attributes for a given specification. Core attribute collections are used in the user interface to give users access to the required fields when no view has been defined.

A type of script that is used to create customized applications, user interfaces, and updates the menu structure of the user interface.

A data format that contains periodically updated content that is available to multiple users, applications, or both.

The mapping of attributes from different content management systems, which enables you to search for content in multiple content management systems.

A description of the organization of data in a manner that reflects the information structure of an enterprise.

A centralized repository of data where trading partners (retailers, distributors, or suppliers) can obtain, maintain, and exchange information on products in a standard format.

A repository of data to which a federated server can connect and then retrieve data by using wrappers. A data source can contain relational databases, XML files, Excel spreadsheets, table-structured files, or other objects. In a federated system, data sources appear as a single collective database.

The process whereby retailers subscribe to product data as published by suppliers to a source data pool and synchronize that product data with their product data. See also data pool, supply side global data synchronization, and global data synchronization.

The target for a notification of events that are generated by the system. For example, a distribution can be email addresses, FTP sites, or other customized locations.

See document store.

The area of a file system or database where all system files are stored. Any file that is imported, exported, or generated by the system is stored in the docstore.

A saved search query of items or categories. See also static selection.

A collective term for referring to a category or an item.

See attribute instance.

A specific instance of a configuration of hardware and software.

The process that extracts from the system the objects, part of an environment (a selective export), or the entire environment (environment export), and then places the data in a separate file.

The process that adds the objects, part of an environment (a selective import), or the entire environment (environment import) from a file into the system. Before importing the data, the data is validated and standardized.

A Java virtual machine (JVM) service that dispatches events among all modules.

The value that is assigned to an entry in a collaboration area to determine the next step to which it is moved. The available exit values are defined for each workflow step in a workflow.

1. A process that prepares data, especially items and categories, such that it can be sent to downstream systems using various transport mechanisms, such as message queues or FTP.

2. An external file that is used to export data from a catalog or a hierarchy.

See environment export.

The areas in the implementation that can have customizations added that represent the customer-specific business logic. Extension points can include specifications, validation rules, value rules, pre-processing scripts, post-processing scripts, and workflow step functions.

The process whereby trading partners (retailers, distributors, and suppliers) collaborate, exchange, and synchronize standardized product data through data pools. See also data pool, demand side global data synchronization, and supply side global data synchronization.

A type of container that is a hierarchical collection and classification of data. Hierarchies are made up of categories and items. Types of hierarchies include category hierarchies and organization hierarchies.

1. An external data file, or data feed, that is used to import data into a catalog or hierarchy.

2. The process that accepts the data from a data source into a catalog or hierarchy.

See environment import.

The process of referencing attribute instances based on hierarchy structure or on item relationships. Currently, InfoSphere MDM for PIM only supports referencing attribute instances from parent categories in a location hierarchy. Attribute instances can be specified in lower levels in the location hierarchy to override values referenced from parent locations.

A representation of a product or other real-world object. Every item exists in a catalog and can belong to any number of categories within that catalog.

An attribute instance of an item. The attribute is defined by the specification of the owning catalog of the item. See also attribute instance.

An import script, export script, or report script that can be scheduled to run.

An attribute instance that references another object, such as a catalog, hierarchy, item, or category.

The set of attributes of items that are defined in a location hierarchy spec. The attributes are properties of the relationship between an item and a specific location in a location hierarchy. Location data can reference attribute instances at higher locations in the hierarchy through location data inheritance. For example, the attribute "SalesPrice" might set a value for Europe and UK, but for France it might inherit the value set for Europe.

Tables that map data in item or category attribute instances to other values. For example, lookup tables can be used to map color codes to color values, so that only color codes are stored in item or category attribute instances, but when required, the corresponding color values can be retrieved. Lookup tables are used to create and maintain item and category information, to perform search and replace functions within an item or category, and to validate data contained in specific item or category fields.

A collection of attribute-to-attribute mappings.

The correlation of attributes between specifications. For imports, mappings relate the attributes of the file specification to the attributes of the primary specification of the catalog or hierarchy. For exports, mappings relate the attributes for the primary specification to the attributes of the destination specification.

An object that represents a logical grouping of various functional areas in the application and provides more immediate access to those functions. Within the application programming interfaces, a module is called a manager.

See attribute definition.

See property.

See product information management.

The process of collecting, adding, updating, and maintaining product information in a central repository in order to provide consistent, accurate, and current product information to other systems or outputs, such as Web sites or catalogs.

A characteristic of an entity that consists of a parameter and its value and that is used by the application, such as the configuration properties in the common.properties file, or by the application object that can accept property settings.

A Java virtual machine (JVM) service that sends and receives documents outside of the product.

A request for information from a database based on specific conditions.

The language defined and used by InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM to retrieve PIM-specific data from the system. The query language defines a set of objects that simplify the complicated relationships in the PIM data model in order to create a user-oriented search queries without dealing with the technical details of the PIM data model.

An attribute instance that references another attribute for an item that exists in a different catalog. Even if the primary key of the target entry is changed, the two entries are still associated with each other.

A field that can contain objects, file attachments, or pictures as well as text with formatting options such as italics or boldface.

A Java virtual machine (JVM) service that stores the list of available services.

A named entity that represents the state of data at a particular point in time within a unit of work.

A Java virtual machine (JVM) service that manages all jobs that are scheduled in the product. The scheduler service administers import and export jobs in the background.

A method in the InfoSphere MDM for PIM Script API.

An area in the user interface where scripts and scriptlets can be executed. Scripts run in the script sandbox are run by the application server service.

A saved set of attributes that are used to search for items in a catalog or a hierarchy. The search template is used to determine which attributes are visible in the search user interfaces.

A saved set of items (which is a static selection), or a saved search query of items or categories (which is a dynamic selection).

A representation or definition of the attributes for items (item spec), categories (category spec), locations (location spec), imports (file spec), exports (destination spec), lookup tables (lookup spec), or scripts (script input spec). A secondary specification or standalone specification defines supplemental item or category attributes through an association with specific categories. A sub specification is a reusable specification that can be used as part of another specification, such as attributes that always occur together like address attributes.

See property.

See attribute definition.

See property.

The area of the file system that can store both data that will be imported (it is identified as the data source) and data that has been exported (it can be identified as the distribution). See also export.

A saved set of items. See also dynamic selection.

The set of parameters that define the type of object, the type of filter, and the events for which you want to log changes.

The process whereby suppliers provide (or register) product data to a source data pool, which retailers can then subscribe to. Suppliers review and act upon requests from retailers about the provided product data. See also data pool, demand side global data synchronization, and global data synchronization.

See export.

Any item that can be priced, ordered, or invoiced at any point in the supply chain.

A party to a transaction in the supply chain, such as a supplier or distributor (seller) or retailer (buyer).

A script that is stored in the docstore that is called from another script.

See user-defined log.

An individual entry in a user-defined log (UDL) that stores custom content for categories in hierarchies or items in catalogs.

An object that is associated with a hierarchy or catalog that stores custom content.

A rule defined on an attribute definition that specifies the criteria that must be met by the data stored in an instance of this attribute for that attribute to be valid. See also attribute definition, attribute instance.

A set of attribute collections with specifications about whether those attributes are viewable, editable, or both. A view belongs to a container and can be applied when viewing entries in that container, to change the fields that can be viewed or edited.

A sequence of activities or steps that define business processes for managing product information data. A workflow is applied to a particular container by defining a collaboration area associated with that container and workflow. Each workflow applies either to items or to categories.

A Java virtual machine (JVM) service that communicates with the other InfoSphere MDM Server for PIM services through workflow events that are posted to the database.

A unique activity in a workflow. Workflow steps are performed by one or more users or roles. A workflow step must have one or more exit values that connect to another step in the workflow. Types of workflow steps include success or failure steps, approval steps, modify steps, and nested workflow steps.