Maintenance - Synchronize databases

To open the maintenance form choose Administration -> Database ... -> Maintenance ... from the menu and select the Synchronize databases tab. With the maintenance functions you can update values cached from other modules or external webservices. Entries in Diversity Descriptions can be linked with several other modules of the Diversity Workbench, e.g. by the Description scopes. If you link a data source to another module, the URI of the data set in the other module together with one or several cached values will be stored in Diversity Descriptions. Due to changes in the source modules these cached values may differ from the original values. To get the actual values you can use the  synchronize functions for taxonomic names, specimen and observations,  geographical names, sampling plots, and references. Additionally broken links can be searched an repaired.

Commonly used database synchronization options

In the sub-panels several commonly used options and controls are available. First the source database must be selected, where the referenced data are stored. In the example shown below this is the Taxonomy database. Click on button to open the connections administration form where you may connect missing databases. The second parameter that has to be specified is the Descriptions project that contains the datasets which have to be checked or updated. If datasets of Diversity Descriptions are not yet linked to another module, the project of the source database may be specified (Taxonomy project in example below).

By starting a query (button Check for differences, Check for identical names or Start check) you will get a result list of database entries that can be updated (see image below). In this example the first result entry represents two datasets in Diversity Descriptions (column Number). In column DescriptionIds the range of the affected database internal IDs is shown. You may select or deselect single entries of the result list for the database update in column OK.

The size of the query result list may be adapted by changing the value Number of results or unchecking this option to get the complete list (see image below). If datasets of Diversity Descriptions are not yet linked to another module, the query in Diversity Descriptions may be restricted by specifying a value in the field Restrict to names starting with. You may select or deselect all entries of the result list for the database update by clicking the buttons Select all rsp. Select none. 

If you select the option Include description IDs the buttons Inspect dataset and Close and view will be shown. By starting a new query (button ) the result list will now include the columns Description and DescriptionID instead of DescriptionIds and Number (see image below). Furthermore each dataset entry will now be shown in an own result line.  

By selecting an entry in the result table and clicking the button Inspect dataset you may view the dataset in a sepate window. With button Close and view you can close the maintenance form without changing the database and view or edit all enteries that are checked in column "OK" of the result table in the main program window.