About data
Data is what drives your business, and our software. We define data as anything that is obtained through an Input task and used within the process itself. Once the data is obtained, it becomes the job file that is passed from one task to another and generally used to generate output (see Job file).
Data can be manipulated using the tasks in the process, used as comparison for conditions and loops, complemented with data from other sources, and used to generate your output. It originates from many different sources (as many as the input tasks support), parts of it can be stored in variables, and it is always accessible by the task that currently handles it.
Data is referred to in tasks using data selections; see Data selections. Data selections let you use data in file names, for example, or store them in a variable or in the Data Repository for use later on.
While creating a process, you will need a sample data file to make data selections from it and to debug the process with it. For more information about sample data files see Sample Data.
Null characters present in the data may not be displayed properly when using the PReS Workflow Configuration tool, and they may also be printed differently by different printers. To ensure consistency, you should consider filtering out such characters.
About documents and variable data
"Variable data" is data that is meant to be merged with a document or template.
In PReS Connect, variable data is usually retrieved from a data file (the job file) using the OLConnect Execute Data Mapping task. This task uses a data mapping configuration file, created with the DataMapper, to produce a record set. A data mapping configuration contains a data model. Any Connect template constructed using the same data model can be merged with the resulting record set by an OLConnect Create Content task.
In PlanetPress Suite, Design documents are typically associated with an Output task. PReS Workflow dispatches captured data (the job file) to PlanetPress Design documents directly. It is therefore critical that a process and a document use the same emulation (see About data emulation). PlanetPress Suite users are advised to review the PlanetPress Design User Guide, especially the Selecting an Emulation section.