4.1 Schema Masking Overview

Schemas may contain many superfluous elements or cater for scenarios which may not be relevant to the reporting entity.

Schema Masking is the process of removing (or hiding) unnecessary schema complexity according to your actual reporting requirements in order to simplify the display and navigation of the schema. This will also reduce the number of tables needed in the Excel import template or relational databases.

There are three types of Schema Masking:

1. Removal of non-mandatory elements and their children.
2. Removal of unneeded choice children (items in choice element dropdown lists).
3. Converting a table to a form by restricting the number of elements in the foreign table to 1.

Each of these scenarios is discussed in more detail in the articles of this section.

Entering Masking Mode

To begin masking, click the Mask Schema Elements button on the Home ribbon:

This is a toggle button and will have a dark background when activated:

To turn off Masking Mode, click it again.

Once activated, elements that can be masked will have their individual masking buttons visible:

Removing Schema Masks

Schema masks can be removed individually by de-activating the toggle button on the particular element. Schema masks can also be removed from the entire document by clicking on the Remove All button on the Home ribbon: