4.2 Eliminating Non-Mandatory Elements

A schema may contain many non-mandatory schema elements that are superfluous to your reporting requirements.  You can remove these elements and all their children which could drastically reduce the number of tables and table columns required in your data source (Excel or relational databases).

NB! Because this will have an impact on the fields and tables of your data sources, it is recommended that you complete your schema masking before you begin integrating it with your data sources.

Eliminating Individual Non-Mandatory Elements

Mandatory elements are indicated by their slight purple brush:

Elements without this brush are non-mandatory and can be eliminated. To eliminate these elements, enter Schema Masking mode by clicking the Mask Schema Elements button on the Home ribbon:

With the toggle button activated, the individual element masking toggle buttons will appear on elements that can be masked:

To eliminate the "Undocumented Account Ind" element, click its toggle button:

The element will remain until the Mask Schema Elements toggle button on the Home ribbon is deactivated.  Once deactivated, the element will be eliminated:

The same technique applies for tables.  Non-mandatory columns, or groups of columns can be eliminated: