RDS Manager: Creating and Editing Catalogs

Owned by Andrew DeCarlo
Last updated: Feb 23, 2022
4 min read

Catalog Creation

Catalogs in RDS are logical groupings of Data Products. To create a new catalog, use the navigation to navigate to the catalog creation page. In the workspace area of the application there will be a small form where a catalog ID, name, and description can be set.

The ID is a required field which is used for programmatically interacting with the RDS API. This means it should be a string that has alphanumeric values with _ or - used to represent spaces. Spaces and special characters should not be used in the ID. The ID cannot be changed once the catalog is created.

The name is a human readable name of the catalog that is also required. The description should describe the catalog, the data products that are expected to be in the catalog, or any other descriptive information that may be relevant for users to know. Note that additional metadata about the catalog can be added after it is created.

If managers are not satisfied with their input, the RESET button can be used to quickly wipe the fields and start again. When a manager is satisfied with their input, the CREATE button can be used to start the catalog creation process.

Creation Process

After using the CREATE button a process will appear and managers will be navigated to a page where they can decide what their next course of action should be.

The process will show up in the process tray at the bottom of the screen. This can be left open until the process completes or dismissed with the X in the upper right hand corner of the tray. The tray can be reopened at any time using the “Processes” navigation in the left hand side or the “Check Processes” button in the middle of the page.

If managers want to start editing the newly created catalog they can use the “Manage” navigation path on the left hand side or the “Return to Root Catalog” in the page, either will bring the manager to the catalog management portion of the application.

If managers want to quickly create another catalog the “Create Another Catalog” button can be used, which will navigate back to the catalog creation page.

Editing a Catalog

To edit a catalog, managers can navigate to the management section of the application. Here they can search for the catalog that they want to work on and select it. Once selected, the catalog details will show up in the workspace area of the application.

Internationalized vs Non-Internationalized Editing

If the organization supports multiple languages in their metadata then some more descriptive fields will be internationalized. Other text fields may be more technical in nature, and therefore do not support internationalization and are the same no matter what language the consumer is using.

Internationalized Editors

Internationalized editors will appear when the user selects the field they want to edit. If internationalization is supported on that field an additional input will appear to allow for editing the values of the field in the other supported languages. After these are expanded the language code will appear to indicate the language of each value. A vertical bar will appear next to all the inputs for the field to clarify which inputs are associated with the field.

Non-Internationalized Editors

For fields that are not internationalized editing will occur as a user may normally expect. Text can be input as desired and there will be no additional inputs for other languages.

Catalog Actions

Catalog actions are found in the top right corner of the catalog.

Discard / Save

After managers have updated the fields of the catalog they can choose to discard these changes or to save them. Discarding the changes will revert the catalog fields to their previous values. Save will persist the changes. Note that auto save functionality is on the road map so these actions will eventually be phased out.

Public Toggle

By default all new resources are created as private (not public) so this toggle is turned off. Making a catalog public will make it, and any public data products that it defines, accessible to the consumer. This should be done once the catalog has been curated and is at a place where managers are comfortable with it being available to their end users.

Additional Actions

The additional actions icon (…) can be used to access other actions that can be performed on the catalog.

Delete Catalog

This will start a process that will delete the catalog and any data products that it defines. This should be done with care.