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Introduction

The Field Mapping Tab is shown below. Notice in the top window pane that all of the available fields appear from their respective applications. These fields are drawn directly from the application environment you've provided as well as the metadata you've selected previously (ex: Project, Issue Type, etc.). For example, in the case of HP QC, the fields available to be selected may differ if the issue type is 'defect' or 'requirement'. If this is a Multi-Project Configuration, the fields available in the table are based on the Template Project you've chosen.


To map fields, click on the desired from each application. You will see that the chosen field is highlighted in gray.

Once the fields are selected, choose the desired direction of the flow. This too is highlighted in gray once clicked. Below are the directional options:

  • "<-->" is a bi-directional flow of information. A field updated in one application will sync to the other, and vice versa.
  • "--->" flows from left application to right application. A field updated in the left application will sync to the right, but updates to the right application will not sync to the left.
  • "<---" flows from right application to left application. A field updated in the right application will sync to the left, but updates to the left application will not sync to the right.
Note
  • You are able to designate separate directions for each field mapping. So some fields could flow bi-directionally, others could be Left → Right, and still others could be Left ← Right if you choose.

Once the fields and directions are chosen, click the Add Field Mapping button on the right side of the screen to add this Field Mapping pane below.

The field items will be removed from the available fields in the top of the screen and appear down in the bottom of the screen under the Field Mapping Properties pane below:


Once the fields are displayed in the Field Mapping Properties pane, notice on the right-hand side there are three icons.

The cogwheel icon takes you to the Field Configuration screen. This section enables greater customization of your field mappings.



You will also see a Delete icon. If you delete the Field Mapping, then the fields will be removed from Field Mapping Properties and will be available again to be mapped if need be.

The final option is the Modify icon. Clicking this icon will bring up the fields will be editable in the Value Mapping pop-up window. Click here for more information on Value Mapping.

Save Mapping

When all of your field and value mappings are completed, click the Save button under Field Mapping Properties. This brings up the Save Automation screen.


On the Save Automation Screen, enter your version name in the Version Description field. This allows you to roll back to this field mapping in the future if needed using the Load Version button.

After entering the version, click either the Save Mapping or Save as New Version button.

  • Save Mapping will finish creating the automation. If you are editing an existing automation, this new field mapping will be used moving forward. This should always be used for new automations.
  • Save as New Version only creates a new version of the mapping and doesn't make it live, continuing to use the previous field mapping. This is useful if you want to save your changes for future review.
  • Cancel returns you to the Field Mapping screen to make any additional edits as needed.

Once the mapping is saved, it is live. You can confirm the settings in the Automation Details pop-up that appears after saving. This screen can be scrolled down to see the rest of your settings.

Should you need to make changes, click the Modify button in the upper-right corner. This screen can also be accessed in the future for your automations by clicking the View icon on the Dashboard, Value Stream, or List View screens.

Active Directory Lookup for User Fields

When trying to map user-related fields and want to integrate Active Directory Lookup/Search, then the same can be enabled and configured using field configuration as below:

If you are enabling the AD Lookup, then two inputs have to be given.

  • "Search Field" - AD identifier against which the input received from the source application will be searched. 
  • "Value Field" - AD identifier from where the destination application value has to be retrieved.

In the example below, the "Assignee" received from Jira will be searched against "sAMAccountName". From the result returned from the search, "mail" value will be sent to the VisualStudio "Assigned To" field.

The AD lookup only happens on the outgoing end, not at the incoming end as well. In the example below, if Assigned To is changed in HP, the new Assigned To value is sent to Jira's Assignee field without going through an AD lookup.



Note that source and destination values determined from such search results are saved in the field's value mapping (and will be visible in the UI as described above). If a value mapping is available, then the AD search will not be done. This gleaning of value mappings improves performance over time since stored mappings are faster than AD lookups.

AD Lookup Enable

Please ensure that AD/LDAP is configured using the LDAP Configuration screen in ConnectALL and AD Lookup user search is enabled.

Read-Only Type of Fields

When user tries to map the Read-Only fields in Field Mapping, then ConnectALL will warn the user if the field is mapped bi-directionally or the sync direction is selected inappropriately. It is up to the user to select the direction (or up to the adapter behavior) to accept values for Read-Only type fields.

Note
  • In an automation, you will be able to set the direction of synchronization as bidirectional or unidirectional. In some applications, when the field that you are trying to map is read-only, the sync direction in ConnectALL will be unidirectional. ConnectALL allows you to change this to bidirectional (you will see a warning when you try to do this) and save the changes. This is allowed because some applications allow their read-only fields to be edited. Note that if you change a truly read-only field to bidirectional, attempts to synchronize that field will fail.

  • You will not be allowed to edit the sync direction of a row that has read-only fields. If you need to edit, delete that field mapping row, add it back, and select the desired sync direction.

Missing Fields Configuration

While modifying an automation, there could be a situation where a field that was previously mapped could have been removed from the original application. Therefore, it is no longer available to be retrieved. Such fields are displayed under the Missing Field Mapping Properties section in the Field Mapping page as displayed below.

Similar to the Field Mapping Properties section, a cogwheel is also displayed in the Missing Field Mapping Properties section against the field mapping(s) with a now-missing field. The red exclamation mark icon next to the cogwheel denotes that there is a missing field. Hover your mouse over the exclamation reveals a tooltip that provides information about the missing field. 

You can either delete that field mapping row or choose to save the app-link retaining that particular field mapping. Note that, even if you don’t delete, the fields will not be used for synchronization.

To include the field back in the field mapping, first make the required changes in the original application to ensure that the field is available to be retrieved. Next, modify the automation to include the field. The field will be again displayed in the Field Mapping section and available for synchronization.

Synchronize Attachment URLs

Typically an entire file is synchronized between applications with Attachment Sync. If desired, only the url of the file can be stored in the remote application. To enforce url sync, the source field will be the attachment, and the destination field will be a large text field. For example:

Note:  The mapping must be one direction ONLY.

Mapping a Field Multiple Times

Starting with version 2.10.26.2, ConnectALL allows you to map a field multiple times in the field mapping screen. This is achieved by using the reference fields configuration feature and is possible in three adapters and for a specific datatype in each adapter, namely ServiceNow (Reference), Salesforce (Reference), and VersionOne (Relation).

When you map a field multiple times using the reference field configuration feature, there are a couple of ways you can do it. We discuss these scenarios below.

Scenario 1: Mapping the Reference Field once with/without Reference Field Configuration.


In this scenario, all the three mapping directions are supported. 

Scenario 2: Mapping the reference field more than once with/without reference field configuration

In this scenario, bidirectional mapping is allowed only in one row. In other rows, the mapping should be uni-directional. See the example below:

Note
  • In the above scenario, mapping a reference field more than once with bi-directional mapping or mapping in the wrong direction is not allowed. An error will be displayed if you try to do so.