Getting Started

Tools by Tracks

You can choose from multiple tools to perform each task in the Data Hub process. QuickStart, the Gradle tasks, and Data Hub Java API provide the widest range of functionality, while others are more focused.

The tools can be categorized into three tracks:

The GUI track (recommended) provides intuitive graphical interfaces to work with your data.
- QuickStart provides the same functionality available in the non-GUI tools, and it automatically performs many tasks that you might have to explicitly handle when using Gradle.
The command-line track helps you to quickly automate your most common processes, bypassing the GUI.
- An extensive set of Gradle tasks is provided to automate the creation of artifacts and the execution of flows. Gradle is ideal in a continuous integration environment, where creation, testing, and execution are performed multiple times.
  Note: To run a flow using Gradle, you must be in the local directory that contains the Data Hub project files.
- The executable Data Hub Client JAR is the ideal alternative to running a flow in a production environment where Gradle and the Data Hub project files are not available. It only requires a JVM.
The programming track provides the APIs you can use to create apps that run flows to manage and use your data.
- The Data Hub Java API is provided for running flows in your own Java-based apps or in an external orchestration system that supports Java-based extensions.
- MLCP provides an alternative to ingesting data into the STAGING database.
- The REST Client API provides some record-management and job-information-retrieval capabilities.

You can switch between tracks or between tools for different tasks; however, switching from the command-line track to the GUI track might be less convenient because the GUI handles some processes automatically.

Tasks by Tracks

The following table organizes the tasks you can run with the tools in each track:


Task	GUI Track	Command-Line Track	Programming Track
Create Project	Using QuickStart	Using Gradle
Set Security Credentials		Using Gradle
Create Entity (required for mapping step)	Using QuickStart	Using Gradle
Create Flow	Using QuickStart	Using Gradle
Edit the Flow Settings	Using QuickStart	Manually
Create Step	Using QuickStart	Using Gradle
Configure Step	Ingestion Step Using QuickStart Mapping Step Using QuickStart Matching Step Using QuickStart Merging Step Using QuickStart Mastering Step Using QuickStart Custom Step Using QuickStart
Create Mapping		Manually
Add Custom Hooks		Manually
Manage Steps in a Flow	Using QuickStart	Manually
Run Flow	Using QuickStart	Using Gradle Using Data Hub Client JAR	Using Data Hub API Using MLCP (for ingestion only)
Merge Records Outside a Flow		Using Gradle	Using REST Client API
Unmerge a Record Outside a Flow		Using Gradle	Using REST Client API
Deploy	to Data Hub Service
Redeploy	Using QuickStart	Using Gradle

Sample Data

If you need sample data to test with, you can download and unzip store-data.zip, which contains data files (in CSV format) of a fictional board game retailer.