Steps to start an Execution Plan in Oracle DAC

What are the steps to follow while starting an Execution Plan in Oracle DAC?

Note: This is not a complete end to end steps to use Oracle DAC. These steps can be followed when Most of the ETL development is done, all tasks are included in DAC, Subject Areas created, Execution Plan is built. Development Cycle and Stage - Bug fix / Enhancements / UAT.

We need to check for configurations in DAC and in Informatica before starting the load.

DAC Configurations

           Setup Tab

1.  Check the Informatica server connections, is it pointing to the server that has the latest code/ required fixes? If not, then change the configurations and Test connection.
2. Check the Source DB and Target DB connections, are they pointing to the required DBs?  If not, then change the configurations and Test connection. 
3. Also check the table space for creating indexes.

         Design Tab

1. Date parameters must be checked, if you are doing a full load then check on the Initial extract date, Snapshot dates etc. and set the required date.
2. Assemble Subject area if needed. Did u change anything at the task level and did not assemble the SA?

         Execution tab

1. Regenerate the parameters and rebuild the Execution Plan if needed
2. Are you doing a full load? Then reset the sources. Right click on the EP and select the option to reset sources.
3. Do not start the load yet, we need to do some checks on Informatica

Informatica Configuration

1. Check the connections for source and target db. Ask yourself these questions -Do the connection names match with the ones in DAC? and are they pointing to the same db that DAC is pointing to? If any of the answers is a No then enter the correct details

Execution plan kick off

Now we are ready for starting the Execution plan, go ahead and start it :-)

Configuration Tags in Oracle DAC

How can we control the inclusion and exclusion of tasks in a Subject Area or EP in DAC?


So I have a task that should not be executed in an EP but should be included in another EP that i want, how do I do this? The answer is configuration tags!

What is a configuration tag?
By Oracle docs definition - A configuration tag is an object that controls the inclusion of tasks in subject areas. When a task is tagged, it is not eligible to be included in the collection of tasks for any subject area, unless the tag is part of the subject area definition "Include Task" property.

In simple terms,
If we do not want a task/ tasks into a SA, create a new configuration tag and add this task / tasks to it. Then, select SA into which we do not want these tasks, simply Assemble it once again and we can see that the task will not be included in the SA.
Select the Subject Area into which we want the tasks to be included, add the configuration tag and assemble the SA.

Steps to integrate a new task in DAC

1. Add all tasks, Synchronize Mappings
2. Add all source tables 
3. Add all target tables and import columns in all tables in single shot 
4. Create all indexes in DB then import them at a time