Data rules

After you create your rule definition logic, you generate data rules to apply the rule definition logic to the physical data in your project.

You can generate data rules after you create rule definitions that are defined with valid rule logic. After you create your rule logic, you can apply the logic to physical data in your project. After you generate data rules, you can save them, and re-run them in your project. They can be organized in the various folders listed on the Data Quality tab in your project. The process of creating a data rule definition and generating it in to a data rule is shown in the following figure:

Figure 1. Process of creating and running a data rule

Process of creating a data rule definition, generating a data rule, running a data rule, and viewing the output

When you create a data rule, you turn rule definitions into data rules, and bind the logical representations that you create with data in the data sources defined for your project. Data rules are objects that you run to produce specific output. For example, you might have the following rule definition:

fname = value

The rule definition defines the rule logic that you will use when building your data rule. When you create your data rule from this logic, you might have the following data rule:

firstname = 'Jerry'

In the example, the "fname" entry is bound to "firstname," a column in your customer information table. "Jerry" is the actual first name you are searching for. After you create your data rule, you can reuse your rule definition to search for another customer's first name by creating a new data rule. Another data rule you can create out of the rule definition example is:

firstname = 'John'

You can reuse your rule logic multiple times by generating new data rules.

You can generate a data rule in the following ways:

By clicking a rule definition in the Data Quality workspace and selecting Generate Data Rule from the Tasks menu.
By opening a rule definition, and clicking Test in the lower right corner of the screen. Follow the Steps to Complete list in the left corner of the screen to run the test successfully. When you are done with the test, click View Test Results. After viewing the test results, you can save the test as a data rule. This means that all the bindings you set when you were running the test become a data rule. Creating the data rule here will create a copy of the test results as the first execution of the data rule.