OpenIDM Integrator's Guide
10.5. Basic Data Flow Configuration

The synchronization mappings file (openidm/conf/sync.json) represents the core configuration for OpenIDM synchronization.

The sync.json file describes a set of mappings. Each mapping specifies how attributes from source objects correspond to attributes on target objects. The source and target indicate the direction for the data flow, so you must define a separate mapping for each data flow. For example, if you want data flows from an LDAP server to the repository and also from the repository to the LDAP server, you must define two separate mappings.

You identify external resource sources and targets as system/name/object-type, where name is the name used in the connector configuration file, and object-type is the object defined in the connector configuration file list of object types. For objects in OpenIDM's internal repository, you use managed/object-type, where object-type is defined in openidm/conf/managed.json. The name for the mapping by convention is set to a string of the form source_target, as shown in the following example.

{
    "mappings": [
        {
            "name": "systemLdapAccounts_managedUser",
            "source": "system/MyLDAP/account",
            "target": "managed/user",
            "properties": [
                {
                    "target": "familyName",
                    "source": "lastName"
                },
                {
                    "target": "homePhone",
                    "source": "homePhone"
                },
                {
                    "target": "phoneExtension",
                    "default": "0047"
                },
                {
                    "target": "mail",
                    "comment": "Set mail if non-empty.",
                    "source": "email",
                    "condition": {
                        "type": "text/javascript",
                        "source": "(object.email != null)"
                    }
                },
                {
                    "target": "displayName",
                    "source": "",
                    "transform": {
                        "type": "text/javascript",
                        "source": "source.lastName +', ' + source.firstName;"
                    }
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

In this example, the source is the external resource, MyLDAP, and the target is OpenIDM's repository, specifically the managed user objects. The properties reflect OpenIDM attribute names. For example, the mapping has the attribute lastName defined in the MyLDAP connector configuration file mapped to familyName in the OpenIDM managed user object. Notice that the attribute names come from the connector configuration, rather than the external resource itself.

You can create attributes on the target as part of the mapping. In the preceding example, a phoneExtension attribute with a default value of 0047 is created on the target. The "default" property can also be used to specify the value to assign to the target property if the "source" property and the "transform" script yield a null value. If no value is specified, the default value is null.

You can also set up conditions under which OpenIDM maps attributes as shown for the email attribute in the example. By default, OpenIDM synchronizes all attributes. In the example, the mail attribute is set only if the script for the condition returns true.

OpenIDM also enables you to transform attributes. In the example, the value of the displayName attribute is set using a combination of the lastName and firstName attribute values from the source. For transformations, the source property is optional. However, the source object is only available when you specify the source property. Therefore, in order to use source.lastName and source.firstName to calculate the displayName, the example specifies "source" : "".

To add a flow from the repository to MyLDAP, you would define a mapping with source managed/user and target system/MyLDAP/account, named for example managedUser_systemLdapAccounts.

The following image shows the paths to objects in the OpenIDM namespace.

During synchronization, your scripts always have access to a source object and a target object. Examples already shown in this section use source.attributeName to retrieve attributes from the source objects. Your scripts can also write to target attributes using target.attributeName syntax.

{
    "onUpdate": {
        "type": "text/javascript",
        "source": "if (source.email != null) {target.mail = source.email;}"
    }
}

See the Scripting Reference appendix for more on scripting.

By default, all mappings participate in automatic synchronization operations. You can prevent a specific mapping from participating in automatic synchronization by setting the "enableSync" property of that mapping to false. In the following example, automatic synchronization is disabled. This means that changes to objects in the internal repository are not automatically propagated to the LDAP directory. To propagate changes to the LDAP directory, reconciliation must be launched manually.

{
    "mappings" : [
        {
            "name" : "managedUser_systemLdapAccounts",
            "source" : "managed/user",
            "target" : "system/ldap/account",
            "enableSync" : false,
             ....
}