Creating a "default" Smart View of a data record

A Smart View is an alternative to the "conventional" generated view used to display the data record detail in Talend MDM Web UI. A Smart View is a customized view that uses an XSLT step to render the HTML presentation from the incoming XML record.

You can either create the HTML elements directly in the parameters of the XSLT step in the Process editor, or create a web template outside Talend Studio and then paste the HTML into the parameters of the XSLT step in the Process editor.

Before you begin

You have already connected to the MDM server from Talend Studio. You have the appropriate user authorization to create Processes.

About this task

To create a Smart View of a data record, do the following:

Procedure

In the MDM Repository tree view, expand Event Management and then right-click Process and select New from the contextual menu.
The Create Process dialog box displays.
Select the Create a Smart View option, and then click Next.
The second screen of the wizard is where you define the Process name, which is made up from the name of the entity on which you want to run the Process, and an optional suffix.
Click the [...] button to open the Select one entity dialog box, choose the appropriate Data Model from the drop-down list, select the entity on which you want to run the Process, and then click Add to close the dialog box.
If you want, you can also add an optional suffix in the Optional Name field which will give a specific name to your Smart View in addition to the entity name. This can be useful if, for instance, you create multiple Smart Views on the same entity.
The Process name will follow the same format as these examples: Smart_view_Product or Smart_view_Product#mysmartviewprocess.

In this example, we assume that you have a Product data model that has a Product business entity. Many attributes have been defined for this entity including: Name, Description, Features (Sizes and Colors), Availability and Price.
Click Finish to close the dialog box.
An editor for the newly created Process opens in the workspace with a Stylesheet step already listed in the Step Sequence area.
If required, click the [...] button next to the Description field to open a dialog box where you can set multilingual descriptions of your Process.
This description will be listed as the Smart View name in the Smart View list in Talend MDM Web UI.

Information noteNote: When you create a new Smart View Process, an XSLT step, with the input and output variables, is automatically added. Basic HTML elements are also automatically added in the Parameters area.

Information noteNote: You can always add new steps in the Process if you enter the step name in the Step Description field and then click the icon.
For further information, see Creating a Process from scratch.
Select the Stylesheet step in order to display the Step Specifications and the Parameters areas of the selected XSLT step.
In the Parameters area, you can see the code used by the stylesheet. Click the Open in Editor button to use the specific XSLT editor to edit this code.
Note that you can also make simple changes directly in the Parameters area.

Information noteWarning: The text you enter in the Parameters area will be indented by default upon saving. This may cause problems in HTML formatting when creating the Smart View Process. Clear the Auto-indent check box to disable the text indentation upon saving the process.
Enter the following code for the Product entity in the XSLT editor, and then click Save back to process editor and close to save your changes and exit the editor.
```
<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
version="1.0">  
  <xsl:output method="html" indent="yes" omit-xml-declaration="yes"/>
  <xsl:template match="/"> 
   <html> 
     <head> 
       <title>Product</title> 
     </head>  
     <body> 
       <h1>This is the default ENGLISH Smart View for: 
         <xsl:value-of select="./text()"/> 
       </h1>  
       <tr> 
         <td> 
            <xsl:value-of select="Product/Name"/> 
         </td> 
       </tr>  
       <table border="1"> 
       <tr> 
         <td> 
          <xsl:value-of select="Product/Description"/> 
         </td> 
       </tr>  
       <tr>
         <td> 
            <xsl:value-of select="Product/Features"/> 
         </td> 
       </tr>  
       <tr> 
         <td> 
            <xsl:value-of select="Product/Availability"/> 
         </td> 
       </tr>  
       <tr> 
         <td> 
            <xsl:value-of select="Product/Price"/> 
       </td> 
       </tr> 
     </table> 
   </body> 
  </html>
 </xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
```
This way, whenever a business user accesses Talend MDM Web UI and tries to browse records in the Product entity, he/she will get this Smart View by default:

Information noteNote: From this view in Talend MDM Web UI, the business user can have access to any Runnable processes created on the selected entity. He/she can run any of the listed process to initiate the tasks listed in the Process. For further information on Runnable Processes, see Creating an Entity Action Process.

The business user can switch to the "conventional" generated form by clicking Generated View on the menu bar:

The business user can always switch back and forth between the Smart View and the generated view through clicking the Personalized View and Generated View tabs respectively in the Browse Record view in Talend MDM Web UI.

Information noteNote: You can always disable the Smart View process if you select the Disabled check box in the Process editor.

Information noteNote: For further information on how to customize the Smart View parameters if you have Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and JavaScript resources, see HTML resources and Foreign Keys and cross referencing.

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