Working with the Case Data Model
The case data components of the UNICOM Intelligence Data Model expose case data to a consumer application as follows:
▪A case data source component (CDSC) exposes the case data stored in its native format (the data source) to the Provider.
▪The Provider creates one or more virtual data tables and populates them using the case data exposed by the CDSC and the metadata from the Metadata Model.
▪The Provider exposes the virtual tables and the data they contain to the consumer application by using a set of industry-standard OLE DB interfaces that support a limited set of SQL commands.
You can use any OLE DB-enabled application to access the data presented by the Provider.
The Case Data Model includes a component for parsing and evaluating expressions, a library of functions, and an SQL aggregation component. These components have been designed specifically to meet the needs of the market research industry; for example, by supporting categorical variables. The component architecture has been designed for flexibility and extensibility.
When you access the Case Data Model, this architecture is hidden: it is as if the expression evaluation, the functions, and the SQL aggregation are part of the Provider.
Expression evaluation
The UNICOM Intelligence Data Model implements expression parsing and evaluation through the Evaluate component. This component is used by both the Case Data Model and the Metadata Model (MDM), but for the purposes of this documentation, it is considered to be part of the Case Data Model. The Evaluate component enumerates the functions of all of the registered function libraries.
Function libraries
The UNICOM Intelligence Data Model comes with a library of functions that have been specifically designed for use with market research data. You can add new functions by creating new function libraries.
SQL aggregation
By default, the UNICOM Intelligence Data Model implements SQL aggregation through the SQL Aggregator component. However, aggregation can optionally be implemented in the CDSC; for example, when doing so improves the performance.
See also