You can create the following data generation rule types:

Standard rules, custom rules. and advanced rules are global rules. Global rules are rules that you create in the

Policies

view of Test Data Manager. When you create a global generation rule in the

Policies

view, you specify a rule name. This rule is available for projects that you create. You assign the rule to one or more columns in the project that you want to generate data into.

Ad hoc generation rules are rules that you create in the

Define | Data Generation

view of a project. Ad hoc rules do not have a name, and you cannot move an ad hoc rule. You can create ad hoc generation rules within the projects. You select the target columns for an ad hoc generation rule when you create the rule. You can select a standard generation technique for an ad hoc generation rule or you can select an ad hoc generation technique. You can use reference lookup, effective dates, and expression generation techniques only in an ad hoc generation rule. In an ad hoc rule, if you want to generate numbers in a column that uses string data type, you can change the data type to numeric.

After you install TDM and log in to Test Data Manager, TDM configures the default generation rules that comes with the installation package.

A data generation technique defines the logic that generates the data. When you create a generation rule, the techniques vary based on datatype you select. Generation parameters are options that you configure for a generation technique. For example, you can define different start dates and end dates for random date generation.

You can enable users to override generation parameters for a rule. For example, you create a rule that generates random dates from 2011 to 2012. You set the override option for the rule. When a user assign this rule to a target column, the user can select Saturday and Sunday as exclude dates so that the rule generates random weekday dates from 2011 to 2012.