The E-WorkBook Catalog Populator

E-WorkBook provides catalog dictionaries, which support a centralized relational data model.

These catalog terms help to enforce the usage of standardized terminology, to ensure consistency of data input and to enable contextual searching.

Although catalog dictionaries can be manually defined, the IDBS Catalog Populator tool is designed to periodically populate the E-WorkBook catalog based on data returned from SQL queries from a third-party system. This automated process ensures that the latest terms and ontologies are available to users.

The E-WorkBook platform is designed for enterprise deployment. Researchers expect that data can be transferred between systems, to reduce the overhead of transcription and to ensure consistency and quality. With IDBS E-WorkBook Integrations, frameworks are provided to seamlessly connect the data management platform with your research systems, leveraging feature-rich APIs and extension points to facilitate integration to instruments and third-party data systems.

How is the tool used in practice?

The catalog populator tool is used to synchronize data between systems so
that there is a continuous source of truth.

This exchange of verified data can then be used to drive constrained picklists and to control entities, vocabularies and metadata, both within the E-WorkBook spreadsheet and project hierarchy. Having a co-ordinated source of data enables E-WorkBook to leverage content from compliant systems, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and databases of standard operating procedures (SOP) and regulatory content, ensuring compliance across the system so that there is no ambiguity, making the process of validation simpler.

How does it work?

The Catalog Populator tool leverages the E-WorkBook catalog web service, which is a RESTful API that is maintained with the E-WorkBook releases. The tool can be configured to run a periodic synchronization process to map multiple data sources to multiple catalog terms, using parameterized SQL queries on the third-party system with
a JDBC connector.

The Catalog Populator tool is configured using an administrator editable XML file that contains the database connection details, SQL statements and catalog mapping terms. The database connection details are stored in an encrypted manner which helps to ensure security and integrity of the system. To ensure adaptability over time, these mappings can be simply modified to meet future needs.

The system can also be configured to send email notifications using SMTP addressing.
To ensure robustness, the Catalog Populator tool is provided with recursive logging capabilities for diagnostics.

How is it deployed?

The Catalog Populator tool is deployed on the customer network and can be installed on either Windows or Linux operating systems. Returning data is passed to E-WorkBook via
a whitelisted IP connection. The tool supports both on-premise and cloud deployments
of E-WorkBook.

What services/software does IDBS provide?

• The IDBS Professional Services team will install, configure and test the Catalog Populator on the customer site.

What does the customer need to provide?

• To whitelist IP addresses for connectivity between the applications
• Availability of the system administrators who manage the E-WorkBook instance (if on-premise) and the content databases
• GxP validation of the integration component is to be addressed by the PQ process.