What is a table catalog?

A table catalog is a collection of mapped user tables. Table catalogs store all user table mapping metadata information for re-use across flowcharts. You can also map contact and response history tables in a table catalog for inclusion and exclusion rules.

Table catalogs are stored by default in a binary format using a .cat extension. They can also be saved as XML files.

You use table catalogs to:

  • Easily save, load, and update commonly used user tables.
  • Create alternative data mappings (for example, to switch between running against a sample database and the production database).

You can save mapped user tables to a table catalog, then use the same table catalog in other flowcharts. This means you can:

  • Make changes to the table catalog in one flowchart, then propagate these changes to other flowcharts by importing the updated table catalog into each flowchart.
  • Retain the internal catalog that you first loaded for that flowchart, although you copy it to other flowcharts and make changes there.
  • Make different changes to the internal catalogs of a number of different flowcharts, starting from one "template" table catalog.