Appendix F. Best Practices

This appendix gives you some advice to take into account in your daily work with PDI. If you intend to work seriously with PDI, knowing how to accomplish different tasks is just not enough.

Here you have some guidelines that will help you to go in the right direction:

• Outline your ideas on paper before creating a transformation or a job. Don't drop steps randomly on the canvas trying to get things to work, otherwise you will end up with a transformation or a job that is difficult to understand and might not be of any use.
• Document your work. Write at least a simple description in the transformation and job setting windows. Replace the default names of the steps and the job entries with meaningful ones. Use notes to clarify the purpose of the transformations and the jobs. Color-code your notes for a better effect; for example, use a color for notes explaining the purpose of a transformation, and a different color or font for technical notes. By doing...