Chapter 4: Automating Your Workflow

Auto-mapping, selection shortcuts, bulk operations, and auto-mapping rules for working efficiently at scale.

The previous chapters covered how to build and annotate mappings by hand. On a small schema that's perfectly manageable. On a real project with hundreds of columns, doing everything manually is slow and error-prone. This chapter covers the tools Bridger provides to handle repetitive work in bulk: auto-mapping matched columns in one gesture, selecting large sets of rows quickly, routing batches of columns to a target in one operation, updating existing mappings in bulk, and running configurable rules that apply mapping logic automatically.

Auto-Mapping Tables

The fastest way to create a large set of mappings at once is to drag a source table and drop it onto its corresponding target table. Bridger compares the two tables and creates mappings for all columns that match, skipping any columns that already have a mapping.

Before creating anything, Bridger presents a confirmation dialog reporting how many matching column pairs it found. Confirm and the mappings are created, each pre-populated with a Transformation Logic notation of Move source to target. Columns that didn't match are left unmapped — the selection shortcuts and bulk mapping tools covered below are the natural next step for handling them.

Selection Shortcuts

Before running a bulk operation you need the right set of tables or columns selected. Bridger's Select… submenu gives you four shortcuts for building common selections quickly without Ctrl-clicking through a long list.

Right-click anywhere in the source or target tree panel and choose Select… to see the submenu. Two items are always available; two more appear when a table is selected.

Always Available

All Tables with Mappings selects every table in the panel that has at least one mapping. Use this when you want to run a bulk operation on your active mapping set and leave unmapped tables out of scope.

All Tables with No Mappings selects every table that has no mappings at all. Useful for identifying what hasn't been touched yet, or for bulk-assigning indicators to tables that are out of scope for the current phase.

Available When a Table Is Selected

All Columns in Selected Table(s) selects all columns within whichever tables are currently selected.

Remaining Unmapped Columns selects only the columns in the selected tables that don't yet have a mapping. A natural companion to Map Selected Columns when you're ready to bulk-route whatever is left in a table.

Bulk Column Mapping

Bulk column mapping routes a set of source columns to a single target endpoint in one operation. Both entry points open the same dialog; the difference is which columns are in scope.

Map Remaining Columns is invoked by right-clicking a table and choosing Map Remaining Columns…. It operates on all unmapped columns in that table.

Map Selected Columns is invoked after selecting specific columns — via Ctrl/Shift-click or the Remaining Unmapped Columns shortcut — and then right-clicking and choosing Map Selected Columns…. It operates on the current column selection, skipping any that are already mapped.

In both cases the dialog asks you to specify a single target table and column, a status, and optionally one or more notations. Every column in scope gets mapped to that same target endpoint with those same properties applied. The preview line in the dialog shows exactly how many mappings will be created before you confirm.

Bulk Update Mappings

Bulk Update Mappings changes the status or notations on a set of existing mappings in one operation. Where bulk column mapping is about creating mappings, this is about updating ones you've already built.

Select the mappings you want to update in the mappings panel — use Ctrl/Shift-click to build the selection, or apply a filter first to narrow the panel to the rows you care about. Then click the pen button in the mappings panel toolbar. The dialog lets you set a new status, update a notation type with new content, or both.

Notation updates replace the existing content for the specified type. If a mapping doesn't have a notation of that type, one is created. Mappings in an approved state are skipped — approval locking applies here just as it does to manual edits.

Auto-Mapping Rules

Auto-mapping rules let you define match conditions and specify exactly what should happen when a column satisfies them — which target table and column to map to, what status to assign, and what notations to populate. Think of them like rules in an email client: you define the conditions once, and then run them against a selection of tables whenever you need them applied.

Rules are particularly well-suited to patterns that recur across many tables. Audit columns — created_by, modified_by, create_date, modified_date — appear on nearly every table in many legacy schemas and map the same way every time. A rule that matches on column name handles all of them in one run. Similarly, child tables that need a parent key lookup via a stored value pattern can be handled with a rule rather than by visiting each table individually.

Configuring Rules

Rules are defined in the Configuration area. Each rule specifies a match clause — the condition a source column must meet — along with the target table and column to map it to, the status to assign, and any notations to populate. Rules are evaluated in the order they appear; when a column satisfies a rule's conditions, that rule fires and the column is mapped.

Running Rules

Select the source tables you want to process, right-click, and choose Run Auto-Mapping Rules…. The dialog shows the configured rules and lets you confirm before proceeding. Rules only run against unmapped columns — existing mappings are never touched.

Multi-Select in Depth

Several operations in this chapter depend on having the right selection built first. Bridger supports standard multi-select patterns throughout the source and target trees and the mappings panel.

Ctrl+click adds or removes individual items from the current selection. Shift+click extends the selection from the last-clicked item to the current one. Both work on tables and on columns within tables.

Selection is always confined to a single panel. If you have columns selected in the source tree and click in the target tree, the source selection is cleared. This applies to Ctrl and Shift-click as well — once focus moves to the other panel, the previous selection is gone. Build your selection in one panel, run the operation, then move to the other panel if needed.

What's Next

You now have the tools to move quickly through large schemas — auto-mapping matched columns, selecting and routing in bulk, updating existing mappings in batch, and applying rules to handle recurring patterns automatically. Chapter 5: Proving Your Work shifts focus from building to verifying: workbook validation, quality flags, and what Bridger checks to confirm your map is complete and consistent.