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Concepts and terminology

A short tour of the entities you will see throughout the UI. The Glossary has a one-line definition of every term.

  • Environment — A complete, separate copy of the configuration and the loaded data: Dev, Test, Prod. Every install has a default environment; Enterprise installs can add more. See Environments.
  • Source System — A logical data source ("Business Central", "Salesforce", "ERP on-prem"). It owns a schema (the namespace loaded data lands in), one or more instances, endpoints and datasets.
  • Source System Instance — A specific connection to a source system: a base URL, credentials, headers. Several instances under one source system load the same datasets from several companies, tenants or databases, and every row remembers which instance it came from.
  • Endpoint — One REST path (with method, body and paging) that a dataset reads. An endpoint belongs to a dataset, or waits unassigned in the Data catalogue.
  • Dataset — The unit of "load this data into one table". Its rows are stored in Cloud Connector and exported to the warehouse under <schema>.<dataset>.
  • Nested dataset — A dataset made from a nested field of another dataset's rows (order lines inside orders), so the nested data lands in its own table. See Nested Datasets.
  • Business key — The field(s) that identify a record, joined with && for composite keys. Rows with the same key are updated, not duplicated.
  • Variable — A reusable value referenced as {{name}} in URLs, headers, bodies and filters. Kinds: static (optionally encrypted), date, data reference, integer loop, Key Vault secret. Global variables ({{g:name}}) are shared by every environment.
  • Data catalogue — The list, per source system, of what can still be turned into a dataset: unassigned endpoints, tables the Gateway discovered, entity sets Business Central publishes, files in SharePoint.
  • Export System — A destination for loaded data: SQL Server (Azure SQL, Managed Instance, or on-premises through a relay) or a Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse.
  • Action — A reusable HTTP request or SQL stored procedure that a job runs: refresh a Power BI model, call an API, run a transformation.
  • Job — A pipeline of three phases: Before refresh data, Refresh Source Data, After refresh data. Each phase holds activities, and an activity holds items (actions, stored procedures or dataset refreshes).
  • Job variable — A run-scoped value ({{j:name}}) shared by every action in a job, typed on the job or captured from an action's output.
  • Schedule — Cron expressions that run one or more jobs, in order or in parallel groups.
  • Run — One execution of a job or schedule, with a tree of steps.
  • Load log — The record of one dataset load: start, end, rows, status, error.
  • Webhook — Two things. An inbound webhook lets an external system push rows into a dataset. An outbound webhook subscription lets Cloud Connector POST job and schedule events to your URL.
  • Configuration package — A JSON file holding configuration, used to move it between environments or installs. A template is a package published by Datawareness in the Templates gallery.
  • Data API and Data access role — The read-only API Power BI and scripts use to read loaded data, and the roles that say who may read what. Part of the Business Plus feature set.