About the Connector and Metadata Accelerator

The Connector and Metadata Accelerator imports information about an external application or system and generates rules and data objects that your Process Commander applications can use to communicate with that external system. You use this accelerator to generate connector rules or data mapping rules. The accelerator uses a flow to guide you through the process of creating a service. Because it uses a flow, the data you enter about the rules is stored as a work object.

Generate Connector Rules

Select this option when you want to generate the rules and data objects necessary for your application to send messages to or make requests of external systems and then process the results or response. The Connector and Metadata Accelerator can parse WSDL files, import Java class metadata through introspection, and connect to and then determine the tables and column names in an external database. It then converts the resulting information into the class, property, activity, and connector rules necessary to build a connector.

The accelerator can generate rules for only those connector types that communicate with external systems through protocols or technologies that can expose information or metadata about the construction of that external application. You can use the accelerator to generate connectors for EJB, Java, .NET, SOAP, and SQL.

Before you begin, see About generating connector rules.

See also the Pega Developer Network document Creating Connectors with the Connector and Metadata Accelerator for step-by-step instructions about using this accelerator.

Generate Data Mapping Rules

Select this option when you want to perform one of the following tasks:

• Generate XML parse, XML stream, class, model, and property, and other rules that implement in Process Commander the data model of an external system based on the schema described in an XSD or DTD file. Before you begin, see About importing XSD or DTD files.
• Generate class, model, and Java property rules that reflect the data model described by a JavaBean. In this case, the accelerator also generates Java wrapper classes that access the get and set methods from the source Java class through a Clipboard API interface. Before you begin, see About importing JavaBeans.

Starting the Accelerator

Access this tool from the Integration slice:

1. Click the Pega logo in the upper left corner of the home page.
2. Click to access the Integration slice.
3. Under Accelerators, select Connector and Metadata Accelerator.
4. From the list of accelerator work objects, select New.

Tools, accelerators, and wizards