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Add a context stream from the shelf

Admin → Context streams → Add a context stream opens a shelf of prebuilt context streams. Each tile is one kind of source this release knows how to read, with everything you need to decide whether to add it. The shelf does not tell you whether a source is connected: only a source you have added, tested and enabled can be connected, and the list behind the shelf shows that.

What a tile tells you​

  • Its name is the context stream it adds, such as Jira issues. The line under it says which system the stream reads from.
  • What it gives you lists the first questions the stream makes answerable. They are the same questions the stream's verification asks, so none of them is a question nobody has checked an answer to.
  • What it needs lists the credential, the network reach from the appliance and, for a source Prism reads over a SQL session, the read-only role to grant on your side. How to set it up opens the page in these docs that walks through getting each of them.
  • How it runs says whether the stream is:
    • mirrored: copied into Prism's memory as it changes, on a schedule;
    • snapshotted: a dated copy taken on a schedule;
    • queried in place: nothing copied, and each question asked of the source itself;
    • uploaded: you upload a file, and each upload is a dated copy.

What a tile says before you choose it​

  • One per installation. A stream Prism copies into its memory (mirrored, snapshotted or uploaded) fills tables of its own, and two enabled sources cannot fill the same tables. So while one is enabled, the tile offers no second. A source you have switched off does not count. A stream queried in place copies nothing and has no such limit: you can add, for example, one directory view per region.
  • Templates you adapt. A tile whose source differs from installation to installation, such as a view in your own warehouse or a file from your HR system, is a template. The lines marked YOURS in its manifest are yours to fill in before it can run. How to do that without losing the template is in step 3 below.

A tile that says it declares no context stream holds something the other streams use, such as a list of your people. It is not counted as a stream of its own; the questions on it check what it holds.

Add a stream from a tile​

  1. Choose Use on the tile.
  2. Name the source and fill in the parameters the form asks for. Leave the manifest in the form unchanged, and register.
  3. For a template, open the source's own page and edit the lines marked YOURS in its Manifest tab, then save. Editing there keeps the record of which template the source came from. Editing in the register form does not: a source registered from edited text is treated as a manifest of your own, and in this release a manifest of your own that copies data into Prism's memory is never collected. This step will relax in a later release that lets such a manifest run.
  4. On the same page, enter the credential and Test. The test is what shows whether this installation can reach the source; the tile could not.
  5. Approve and enable it from the same page.

Add your own​

The last tile, Add your own, opens the manifest editor on an empty document. Describe the source in a manifest of your own, register it, and test it from its own page like any other source. Paste a manifest… at the bottom of the shelf opens the same editor. Whether a document of your own can be ingested, as well as queried, is said on its page when you enable it.

If a tile is missing​

The shelf lists every recipe in the image you installed. A source that ships in a later release appears after you upgrade to it; nothing is downloaded. If a recipe in the image cannot be read, the shelf names the file under the tiles rather than hiding it. Send us that line.