Project Related Questions

Hi readers. These are the questions which normally i would expect by interviewee to know when i sit in panel. So what i would request my reader‟s to start posting your answers to this questions in the discussion forum under informatica technical interview guidance tag and i‟ll review them and only valid answers will be kept and rest will be deleted. 1. Explain your Project? 2. What are your Daily routines? 3. How many mapping have you created all together in your project? 4. In which account does your Project Fall? 5. What is your Reporting Hierarchy? 6. How many Complex Mapping‟s have you created? Could you please tell me the situation for which you have developed that Complex mapping? 7. What is your Involvement in Performance tuning of your Project? 8. What is the Schema of your Project? And why did you opt for that particular schema? 9. What are your Roles in this project? 10. Can I have one situation which you have adopted by which performance has improved dramatically? 11. Where you Involved in more than two projects simultaneously? 12. Do you have any experience in the Production support? 13. What kinds of Testing have you done on your Project (Unit or Integration or System or UAT)? And Enhancement‟s were done after testing? 14. How many Dimension Table are there in your Project and how are they linked to the fact table? 15. How do we do the Fact Load? 16. How did you implement CDC in your project? 17. How does your Mapping in File to Load look like? 18. How does your Mapping in Load to Stage look like? 19. How does your Mapping in Stage to ODS look like? 20. What is the size of your Data warehouse? 21. What is your Daily feed size and weekly feed size? 22. Which Approach (Top down or Bottom Up) was used in building your project? 23. How do you access your source‟s (are they Flat files or Relational)? 24. Have you developed any Stored Procedure or triggers in this project? How did you use them and in which situation? 25. Did your Project go live? What are the issues that you have faced while moving your project from the Test Environment to the Production Environment? 26. What is the biggest Challenge that you encountered in this project? 27. What is the scheduler tool you have used in this project? How did you schedule jobs using it?

28. Difference between Informatica 7x and 8x? 29. Difference between connected and unconnected lookup transformation in Informatica? 30. Difference between stop and abort in Informatica? 31. Difference between Static and Dynamic caches? 32. What is Persistent Lookup cache? What is its significance? 33. Difference between and reusable transformation and mapplet? 34. How the Informatica server sorts the string values in Rank transformation? 35. Is sorter an active or passive transformation? When do we consider it to be active and passive? 36. Explain about Informatica server Architecture? 37. In update strategy Relational table or flat file which gives us more performance? Why? 38. What are the out put files that the Informatica server creates during running a session? 39. Can you explain what are error tables in Informatica are and how we do error handling in Informatica? 40. Difference between constraint base loading and target load plan? 41. Difference between IIF and DECODE function? 42. How to import oracle sequence into Informatica? 43. What is parameter file? 44. Difference between Normal load and Bulk load? 45. How u will create header and footer in target using Informatica? 46. What are the session parameters? 47. Where does Informatica store rejected data? How do we view them? 48. What is difference between partitioning of relational target and file targets? 49. What are mapping parameters and variables in which situation we can use them? 50. What do you mean by direct loading and Indirect loading in session properties? 51. How do we implement recovery strategy while running concurrent batches? 52. Explain the versioning concept in Informatica? 53. Hi readers. These are the questions which normally I would expect by interviewee to know when i sit in panel. So what i would request my reader‟s to start posting your answers to this questions in the discussion forum under informatica technical interview guidance tag and i‟ll review them and only valid answers will be kept and rest will be deleted.

54. What is Data driven? 55. What is batch? Explain the types of the batches? 56. What are the types of meta data repository stores?

57. Can you use the mapping parameters or variables created in one mapping into another mapping? 58. Why did we use stored procedure in our ETL Application? 59. When we can join tables at the Source qualifier itself, why do we go for joiner transformation? 60. What is the default join operation performed by the look up transformation? 61. What is hash table Informatica? 62. In a joiner transformation, you should specify the table with lesser rows as the master table. Why? 63. Difference between Cached lookup and Un-cached lookup? 64. Explain what DTM does when you start a work flow? 65. Explain what Load Manager does when you start a work flow? 66. In a Sequential batch how do i stop one particular session from running? 67. What are the types of the aggregations available in Informatica? 68. How do I create Indexes after the load process is done? 69. How do we improve the performance of the aggregator transformation? 70. What are the different types of the caches available in Informatica? Explain in detail? 71. What is polling? 72. What are the limitations of the joiner transformation? 73. What is Mapplet? 74. What are active and passive transformations? 75. What are the options in the target session of update strategy transformation? 76. What is a code page? Explain the types of the code pages? 77. What do you mean rank cache? 78. How can you delete duplicate rows with out using Dynamic Lookup? Tell me any other ways using lookup delete the duplicate rows?

Hi readers. These are the questions which normally I would expect by interviewee to know when i sit in panel. So what i would request my reader‟s to start posting your answers to this questions in the discussion forum under informatica technical interview guidance tag and i‟ll review them and only valid answers will be kept and rest will be deleted. 51.Can u copy the session in to a different folder or repository? 52.What is tracing level and what are its types? 53.What is a command that used to run a batch? 54.What are the unsupported repository objects for a mapplet? 55.If your workflow is running slow, what is your approach towards performance tuning? 56.What are the types of mapping wizards available in Informatica? 57.After dragging the ports of three sources (Sql server, oracle, Informix) to a single source qualifier, can we map these three ports directly to target? 58.Why we use stored procedure transformation? 59.Which object is required by the debugger to create a valid debug session? 60.Can we use an active transformation after update strategy transformation? 61.Explain how we set the update strategy transformation at the mapping level and at the session level? 62.What is exact use of 'Online' and 'Offline' server connect Options while defining Work flow in Work flow monitor? The system hangs when 'Online' Server connect option. The Informatica is installed on a Personal laptop. 63.What is change data capture? 64.Write a session parameter file which will change the source and targets for every session. i.e different source and targets for each session run ? 65.What are partition points? 66.What are the different threads in DTM process? 67.Can we do ranking on two ports? If yes explain how? 68.What is Transformation?

69.What does stored procedure transformation do in special as compared to other transformation? 70.How do you recognize whether the newly added rows got inserted or updated? 71.What is data cleansing? 72.My flat file‟s size is 400 MB and I want to see the data inside the FF with out opening it? How do I do that? 73.Difference between Filter and Router? 74.How do you handle the decimal places when you are importing the flat file? 75.What is the difference between $ & $$ in mapping or parameter file? In which case they are generally used?

Informatica Experienced Interview Questions- Part4 76.While importing the relational source definition from database, what are the meta data of source U import? 77.Difference between Power mart & Power Center? 78.What kinds of sources and of targets can be used in Informatica? 79.If a sequence generator (with increment of 1) is connected to (say) 3 targets and each target uses the NEXTVAL port, what value will each target get? 80.What do you mean by SQL override? 81.What is a shortcut in Informatica? 82.How does Informatica do variable initialization? Number/String/Date 83.How many different locks are available for repository objects 84.What are the transformations that use cache for performance? 85.What is the use of Forward/Reject rows in Mapping? 86.How many ways you can filter the records? 87.How to delete duplicate records from source database/Flat Files? Can we use post sql to delete these records. In case of flat file, how can you delete duplicates before it starts loading? 88.You are required to perform “bulk loading” using Informatica on Oracle, what action would perform at Informatica + Oracle level for a successful load?

89.What precautions do you need take when you use reusable Sequence generator transformation for concurrent sessions? 90.Is it possible negative increment in Sequence Generator? If yes, how would you accomplish it? 91.Which directory Informatica looks for parameter file and what happens if it is missing when start the session? Does session stop after it starts? 92.Informatica is complaining about the server could not be reached? What steps would you take? 93.You have more five mappings use the same lookup. How can you manage the lookup? 94.What will happen if you copy the mapping from one repository to another repository and if there is no identical source? 95.How can you limit number of running sessions in a workflow? 96.An Aggregate transformation has 4 ports (l sum (col 1), group by col 2, col3), which port should be the output? 97.What is a dynamic lookup and what is the significance of NewLookupRow? How will use them for rejecting duplicate records? 98.If you have more than one pipeline in your mapping how will change the order of load? 99.When you export a workflow from Repository Manager, what does this xml contain? Workflow only? 100. Your session failed and when you try to open a log file, it complains that the session details are not available. How would do trace the error? What log file would you seek for? 101.You want to attach a file as an email attachment from a particular directory using „email task‟ in Informatica, How will you do it? 102. You have a requirement to alert you of any long running sessions in your workflow. How can you create a workflow that will send you email for sessions running more than 30 minutes. You can use any method, shell script, procedure or Informatica mapping or workflow control?

Data warehousing Concepts Based Interview Questions 1. What is a data-warehouse? 2. What are Data Marts? 3. What is ER Diagram?

4. What is a Star Schema? 5. What is Dimensional Modelling? 6. What Snow Flake Schema? 7. What are the Different methods of loading Dimension tables? 8. What are Aggregate tables?

9. What is the Difference between OLTP and OLAP? 10. What is ETL? 11. What are the various ETL tools in the Market? 12. What are the various Reporting tools in the Market? 13. What is Fact table? 14. What is a dimension table? 15. What is a lookup table? 16. What is a general purpose scheduling tool? Name some of them? 17. What are modeling tools available in the Market? Name some of them? 18. What is real time data-warehousing? 19. What is data mining? 20. What is Normalization? First Normal Form, Second Normal Form , Third Normal Form? 21. What is ODS? 22. What type of Indexing mechanism do we need to use for a typical Data warehouse? 23. Which columns go to the fact table and which columns go the dimension table? (My user needs to see Relational Connection Browser. The Source and Target are the same db in this case, just diff table names. But created 2 separate connections . I 1st created the TUTORIAL_SOURCE and then copied it to TUTORIAL_TARGET and gave it a new name. then saved it But when i try to retrieve now, for the TUTORIAL_TARGET I'm getting this. DataBase error: ORA-01455: converting column overflows integer datatype ORA-01455: converting column overflows integer datatype Database driver error... Function Name : Fetch SQL Stmt : SELECT OBJECT_NAME, OBJECT_TYPE, OBJECT_SUBTYPE, USER_NAME, USER_PASSWORD2, CONNECT_STRING, CODE_PAGE, COMMENTS, OWNER_ID, GROUP_ID, LAST_SAVED, CREATE_INFO, OPB_OBJECT_ID, OBJVERSION, COMP_VERSION FROM OPB_CNX WHERE OBJECT_ID = ? I can see some data in the table and I have an idea about the offending column The structure of the table is SQL> desc OPB_CNX ; Name Null? Type ----------------------------------------------------- -------- -----------------------------------OBJECT_ID NUMBER OBJECT_TYPE NUMBER OBJECT_NAME VARCHAR2(240) OBJECT_SUBTYPE NUMBER USER_NAME VARCHAR2(240) USER_PASSWORD VARCHAR2(240) CONNECT_STRING VARCHAR2(240) CODE_PAGE NUMBER COMMENTS VARCHAR2(2000) OWNER_ID NUMBER GROUP_ID NUMBER LAST_SAVED VARCHAR2(30) CREATE_INFO NUMBER OPB_OBJECT_ID NUMBER OBJVERSION NUMBER COMP_VERSION NUMBER USER_PASSWORD2 VARCHAR2(2000)

SQL> select object_id, object_type,object_subtype, object_name, owner_id, create_info ,code_page,opb_object_id,owner_id, group_id , last_saved, objversion, comp_version from opb_cnx; 2 3

OBJECT_ID OBJECT_TYPE OBJECT_SUBTYPE OBJECT_NAME OWNER_ID CREATE_INFO CODE_PAGE OPB_OBJECT_ID OWNER_ID GROUP_ID LAST_SAVED OBJVERSION COMP_VERSION ---------- ----------- -------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- ----------- ---------- ------------- ---------- ---------- ------------------------------ --------- -----------10 73 101 TUTORIAL_SOURCE 2252 -5.355E+27 -2.01E-100 64 2252 2 ? 0 1 11 73 101 TUTORIAL_TARGET 2252 -5.355E+27 -2.01E-100 64 2252 2 ? 0 1 Can i delete them from the db and recreate them ?

Question: 2 of 385

Informatica PowerExchange Release Date? Could any body reply me, when the PowerExchange was first released in the market? Was it with Informatica 7.x versions? Please reply. Thank you. Kumar.

Data Processing in Peoplesoft how is data stored,retrieved,manipulated and processed in peoplesoft application? Question: 13 of 707

How would you explain about Informatica Project ? Can any one please tell me how to explain Data warehouse project in interview and from where to start and end. what to explain completely in it(data warehouse project), how much hast to explain from it(dw project) and what is architecture of it and data flow and construction of dw project or data warehouse.what is data warehouse methodology ,types of dw methodology, most using dw methodology in companies right now and project plan of dw, types of Project plan.SRS of DW. High level documents and low level documents details also. what is end to end project.is it necessary using of UNIX in data warehouse or not.sample documents of dw methodology,project plan,HLL and LLD documents.

Pull data from SAP Financials using Informatica Hi, I want to know the processes for pulling the data from SAP Financials using informatica and write scripts to locate the required data.

Organization problems Consider an organization by which you are familiar. If the organization using file processing system the what are problem organization will face? Explain with suitable examples.

Timer Sharing and Batch Processing What are the advantages and dis-advantages of real time, timer sharing and batch processing?

Informatica Loop Scope How to perform a "Loop Scope / Loop condition" in an Informatica program ? Give me few examples.

Informatica Data Integrity Check How to check data integrity in Informatica?

Separating Single Field to Values I have a table having column col1, col2. If for a col1 there is some data in col2. EX: Col1=0012 and Col2 = 12,13,14 then i need these three values 12, 13,14 separately not as a single string as it is in table. Or you can say in need to separate these three values after it is returned by query.There may be only one value or more than 3 as well. EX: 12,13,14,15......... Can be done by using java transformation with the below like code: StringTokenizer st = new StringTokenizer(col2, ","); while(st.hasMoreTokens()) { O_col2 = st.nextToken(); generateRow(); }

How to extract job parameters from a file? We can cal parameters from the file through user variables Could we use dsjob command on linux or unix plantform to achive the activity of extacting parameters from a job?

can we convert exel file to XML file using informatica ? There is no default driver available for reading from Excel files. You need to export the Excel file into a comma delimited or tab delimited file and then you should define a XML type Target and load it. first we need to save the excel file in csv file and then we have xml transformation in informatica by using that we can convert csv file to xml file Excel source is possible through File DSN - Target XML also can be done - read the documentation or help for more information

how to upload flat file in bapi? to upload a flat file into an ABAP program using GUI_DOWNLOAD function module. Upload a flat file in your program into an internal table and then pass the internal table to BAPI

Splitting and merging of file using sort Hi,I have a file which contains 3 types of transactions with account number,transaction type and transaction creation date.The transaction types are 35,39 and 41.The file has duplicate records for all transactions(ie 2 records for each account number for each transaction).Now I need to remove the duplicate for the 39 type transaction alone and keep the remaining.That is only for the transaction type 39 the duplicate record(record with old transaction date) need to be removed and for the remaining transactions the duplicates need to be there.How to achieve this in a single sort step?

half data on each run Through one session how we load half of data from flat file on 1st run of session and on 2nd run of the same session it load rest half of data to the same target ?

half data on each run Through one session how we load half of data from flat file on 1st run of session and on 2nd run of the same session it load rest half of data to the same target ?

Dimension Table Vs Fact Table What is the main difference in the logic when you create a mapping for a dimension table with that of a fact table in Informatica.

how many types of dimensions are available in informatica? 1.Junk Dimension:Contains miscellaneous data such as flags and indicator 2.Degenerated Dimension:Which is derived from the fact table and does not have any dimension of its own. 3.Conformed Dimension:which is connected are shared by more than one facts.

Target Details Verification If the records are transfered from Source to target and if you want to check whether all the records are stored in the target. What are the possible ways to check that. 1) Check Session Logs 2) Use Preview Data option for Target in PowerCenter once session is completed 3) Sql queries if it is a Relational database I guess in the workflow monitor, just right click on the session and select get run properties, this option shows total source rows, no of rejected rows an total rows moved to target.

what is the new lookup port in look-up transformation? In the look up properties whenever you check the dynamic lookup cache is enable, in lookup table new column is added automatically that is newlooup port. If the new lookup port is 0 then there is no change. If it is 1 insert and if it is 2 update.

Discuss which is better among incremental load, Normal Load and Bulk load Incremental load: Incremental means suppose today we processed 100 records ,for tomorrow run u need to extract whatever the records inserted newly and updated after previous run based on last updated timestamp (Yesterday run) this process called as incremental or delta Normal load: In normal load we are processing entire source data into target with constraint based checking Bulk load: In bulk load with out checking constraints in target we are processing entire source data into target.

What are 2 modes of data movement in Informatica Server? The data movement mode depends on whether Informatica Server should process single byte or multibyte character data. This mode selection can affect the enforcement of code page relationships and code page validation in the Informatica Client and Server. a) Unicode - IS allows 2 bytes for each character and uses additional byte for each nonascii character (such as Japanese characters) b) ASCII - IS holds all data in a single byte The IS data movement mode can be changed in the Informatica Server configuration parameters. This comes into effect once you restart the Informatica Server.

How to join two tables without using the Joiner Transformation. if both the tables are available in same database by using source qualifier we can join i.e by using customized source qualifier if the tables are available in different database by using lookup we can join i.e one is source table and other is lookup table. if both the tables are relational we can join both the tables using sql override but if one table is relational and another table is a flat then we've to use joiner transformation.

If a session fails after loading of 10,000 records in to the target.How can u load the records from 10001 th record when u run the session next time in informatica 6.1? In Informatica 8.6, recovery feature is improved. Informatica server writes real time recovery info to a queue which helps maintain data integrity during recovery. So, no data is lost or duplicated. Recovery queue stores reader state, commit number and messageID informatica server committed to target. During recovery, informatica server uses recovery info to determine where it stopped processing. The recovery ignore list stores message IDs that IS wrote to target for failed session. Informatica server writes recovery info to the list if there is a chance that source did not receive an acknowledgement. While recovering, informatica server uses recovery ignore list to prevent data duplication. There are three options for recovery. 1. Fail task and continue work flow. 2. Resume from last checkpoint. 3. Restart task.

Can i use a session Bulk loading option that time can i make a recovery to the session? Nope! when you use bulk loading you can't recover the rows caz it won't write database logs. no,why because in bulk load u wont create redo log file,when u normal load we create redo log file, but in bulk load session performance increases Question: 36 of 707

Is a fact table normalized or de-normalized? Fact tables are always Normalized. Where as dimension tables are may be normalized or denormalized. In Star schema, Fact table is normalized and Dimension table may be normalized or Denormalized. In Snowflake schema, the Fact table is normalized and Dimension tables are always normalized.

Question: 39 of 707

Which tool U use to create and manage sessions and batches and to monitor and stop the informatica server? Informatica Server Manager - Tool that we are using to create and manage Sessions and Batches. Workflow manager is used to create,manage sessions and batches Workflow Monitor is used to monitor, abort/stop the sessions.

Suppose I have one source which is linked into 3 targets.When the workflow runs for the first time only the first target should be populated and the rest two(second and last) should not be populated.When the workflow runs for the second time only the second target should be populated and the rest two(first and last) should not be populated.When the workflow runs for the third time only the third target should be populated and the rest two(first and second) should not be populated. First create a sequence generator where startwith=1 and maxvalue=3, enable the option "cycle". Make sure cache value is set to 0. In the data flow use expression to collect dataflow ports and add a new port (iteration_no) to collect sequence.nextval. pass this data to router where you need to create 3 groups, first group condition iteration_no=1, second group condition iteration_no=2 and third group condition iteration_no=3. This way each session run will be loading first, second and third target instance in cyclic mode.

total how many joiner transformations needed to join 10 different sources.(recent tcs intervie w question) its n-1, so you need 9 transformations.

hi... this was asked in acccenture interview can anyone plz tell me the answer what is the difference between informatica 7.1 and 8.1 main difference between informatica 7.x and 8.x are:1. Java transformation is introduced in Informatica 8.x. while was not in 7.x 2.and Power exchange tool also introduced in informatica 8.x while was not in 7.x Push down optimization Target from Transformation UDF concurrently write files Flat file Enhancement 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Deployment groups Data Masking and HTTP Transformations Grid Support Partitioning based on number of CPUs INSTR, REG_REPLACE string functions LDAP authentication in user management SYSTIMESTAMP

$ & $$ in Mapping or Parameter File What is the difference between $ & $$ in mapping or parameter file? In which cases they are generally used?

$-This is d symbol for server o inbuilt variable. $$-this is the symbol for the variables o parameters which v create $ is session parameter e.g $DBConnection $$ is mapping parameter/variable e.g $$LASTRunDate.

1.how to enter same record twice in target table? give me syntax. Router Transf can be used and use the same conditions for both groups which lets all rows pass through. Then insert the same target table 2. how to get particular record from the table in informatica? using a where clause and to get the records starting with A..write an SQL query in Source Qualifier transformation as.. SELECT * FROM TABLENAME WHERE ENAME LIKE 'A%';

3.how to create primary key only on odd numbers? use Mod function in the aggregator to find odd and even numbers... then filter the records with odd no and use sequence generator 4. how to get the records starting with particular letter like A in informatica? Use substr(A%) in aggregator trans

what are the difference between view and materialized view? View is just a SQL statement stored in Database which is executed every single time its called. Materialized view (MV) is SQL statement and its resultant data stored in database in some form - eg in temp tables while its created. This help in faster extraction of data - downside is the MV has to be refreshed in regular basis to get latest data.

Meterialized views are phisical oracle database objects. Using these we can refresh database tables (W r t) timely manner. whereas views are logical database object.if any chages happens in tabl those changes will effect that respective view also.