You might want to view a field's lineage to help you troubleshoot a mapping with incorrect target data. For example, if fields are missing in the target, you can trace each field's lineage from its source to find where the field is excluded.

When you view the lineage for a field,

Data Integration

highlights the field's path on the mapping canvas. Depending on the transformation, it also highlights the field on the

Incoming Fields

and

Output Fields

tabs of the selected transformation. To see how the field moves through the highlighted data flow, select another highlighted transformation.

The following image shows the lineage of the incoming field OrderAmount in the Target transformation:

Data Integration

displays the full field lineage. A field's lineage begins at its source and ends at its target. If you add a field midstream, the transformation where you add it is the source. For example, lineage for an expression field begins at the Expression transformation where the field was added. A field's lineage ends at the transformation that does not output the field. For example, if an incoming field is not mapped to a normalized field in a Normalizer transformation, the field lineage stops at the Normalizer transformation.

A field's lineage can depend on the transformation you view the lineage from. For example, when you view the lineage for an incoming field used in the lookup condition of a Lookup transformation, the downstream lineage includes all fields returned by the lookup. If you view the lineage of the same field from a downstream transformation, the upstream lineage does not include the fields returned by the lookup.

You can view the lineage of fields that pass through or are changed by any transformation in the pipeline except the following transformations:

Hierarchy Builder
Hierarchy Parser
Hierarchy Processor
Java
Machine Learning
Mapplet transformations that reference an SAP or PowerCenter mapplet
Python
SQL transformations that process an SQL query
Unconnected transformations

If the mapping contains hierarchical data, you can view the field lineage for primitive fields in the data flow. You can also view the lineage for primitive fields that are output from a hierarchical expression. The upstream lineage includes the hierarchical field but does not include its nested elements.