The SA Data Retriever executable populates the ODS database with encyclopedia data. A prerequisite for running the data retriever for a particular encyclopedia is that the schema for that encyclopedia has already been generated, which is done by running the SA Schema Generator on it one time. Other prerequisite are that the SA REST service has already been started, and that the client running the SA Data Retriever has sufficient access to the encyclopedia.

The SA Data Retriever uses the XML configuration file (which holds the values that you entered in the Schema Generator dialog for a given encyclopedia) to retrieve the data from the encyclopedia (through the REST API) to populate the ODS tables. Framework Manager uses those tables to create the packages that you need to generate reports. You can run the SA Data Retriever from a command line or schedule it to run through the Windows Task Scheduler. Each of these methods is described in the sections below.