Configuring source references
A source reference provides information about a source that some or all of the data for a record or chart came from. Source references are displayed to analysts in Analyst's Notebook, i2 Notebook, and the Investigate Add On.
You can specify the contents of source references during ingestion, retrieval of data from external sources. Analysts can also create source references in Analyst's Notebook.
A source reference consists of the following fields:
Source name
The name of the source. This is the only field that must contain a value.
For example, "Phone Network".
Source type
The type of the source.
For example, "Cell data".
Source location
The location of the source. This might be a description of a physical location, or a URL to a digital location. If the location value is in a URL format, it is clickable by analysts.
For example, "Filing cabinet 32, drawer 4" or "http://www.exampleData.com/phone1.html".
Source image URL
A URL to an image of the source. If the URL resolves to an image, it is displayed with the record in Analyst's Notebook and the Investigate Add On.
For example, "http://www.exampleImages.com/phone1.jpg".
Source description
A description of the source.
For example, "This source contains highly accurate information about cell data from the phone network provider".
Specifying the contents of source references
Source references are created or provided in different parts of the system, and you configure the possible values in different ways depending on how the source reference enters the system.
Ingestion source references
The values for source reference name and description are taken from the ingestion source name and description that is specified in the mapping file that is used when you ingest the data.
Records acquire a source reference during the ingestion process. You can provide values for the source reference type, location, and image URL fields for each row in the staging table when you ingest data into the Information Store.
For more information about providing values for this type of source reference, see Information Store staging tables.
Analyst-created source references
Analysts can add source references to records and charts by using Analyst's Notebook. You can constrain the values that analysts can use for the source reference name and type fields.
For more information about configuring these values, see Configuring analyst-created source references.
Connector source references
When records are retrieved from an external data source via the i2 Connect gateway, the connector implementation can provide a source reference.
For more information about implementing source references into your connectors, see Returning source references.