Data Field Verification

Once data fields are created to extract data in Astera, the Field Verification option verifies if the data fields have been captured properly for all the data instances. It does so by checking if any non-blank character is present adjacent to the instances of data fields.

In this document, we will look at how to use Field Verification in a report model.

Using Field Verification

We have a report model with data regions and data fields defined.

1. With this sample file, we can see that from row 28 onwards for the Description and Quantity columns, and row 22 onwards for the Line_Total column, the data fields do not properly contain the data.

With files containing much larger amounts of data, it would not be possible to find such discrepancies.

1. With the data region selected, click on the Start Field Verification icon in the toolbar above the designer.

1. All the data fields having discrepancies in their data points are marked with a warning sign in the Model Layout panel for the selected data region. Field verification checks for any non-blank character adjacent to an instance for a data field to determine the discrepancy.

1. Select the data field Description and click on the Previous and Next icons in the toolbar above the designer to traverse among the discrepant instances for that particular data field.

Astera also specifies where the discrepancy has occurred for each instance of the data field, below the designer.

1. You can click on the Auto adjust all fields icon on the toolbar above the designer to fix the discrepancies in the data fields for the selected region.

This option has adjusted the lengths of the data fields in the selected data region to contain the complete data in each data point.

Note: In cases where two data fields are adjacent to one another, manually adjust the length of the data field to avoid inconsistencies.

1. Field Verification still gives warnings on row 29 for the Unit_Price and Line_Total fields.

It suggests that there is a non-blank character on the right of the Unit_Price field. In this case, the character is part of the Line_Total field.

1. We can uncheck the Verify Right Boundary option in the Field Verification section of the Field Properties panel for Unit_Price and vice versa for Line_Total and Astera will ignore the adjacent non-blank characters.

These Verify Left/Right Boundary checkboxes allow the user to ignore the verification in cases when the adjacent character does not belong to the instance of a data field.

This concludes our discussion on how to use Field Verification in Astera.