CA Service Management

Hello All,

Last week I discussed the use of the pdm_extract command, specifically when it includes a where clause with a UUID value to search for. As I promised you all in my post last week, I wanted to give a quick crash-course in using the pdm_extract and pdm_load functions/commands with Service Desk. There are many options or “flags” that can be used with these commands, many of which I will list here and give examples of.

Lets start with the pdm_extract command. This command is used to pull or extract data from the mdb.

Here is a breakdown diagram for the parts of the pdm_extract command:



A: the base command itself

B: Flags – these are used to specify different functions/actions while doing a pdm_extract

C: Table Name – this section is where you specify the name of the table you are extracting the data from

D: A “greater-then” symbol is used to tell pdm_extract to output the data to a file

E: The directory you want the pdm_extract output file to be saved in, and the name of the file to save it as


Usage of the pdm_extract command:

You can do basic, simple extracts such as extracting the contact table (ca_contact) by using the following:

pdm_extract ca_contact

To have the output of the extract written to a text file, simply use the “>” at the end of your command and then add the directory and filename where you would like the extract file to go:

pdm_extract ca_contact > c:\data_extracts\ca_contact_backup.txt

Any file that is generated via this type of command can later be loaded back into the mdb by using the pdm_load commands.

Available Flags and Options for using the pdm_extract command:




Now here are some examples of using the above flags:

Doing a pdm_extract with a select statement to pull a specific record:

pdm_extract –f “select * from ca_contact where userid=jdoe” > c:\ jdoe_contact_record.txt

This example shows that we are doing an extract with a select statement against the contact table to return all rows where the userid of the contact is “jdoe” – and will pipe it out to a file in the c:\ drive called “jdoe_contact_record.txt”


Doing a pdm extract with the -X flag to have the command extract ALL data with the exception of the tables listed after the flag:

pdm_extract -X Prority, Urgency, Impact, Severity > c:\extract_all_except_pri_urg_imp_sev.txt

This example shows that we are doing an extract of ALL tables in the database used by Service Desk with the exception of the specified tables (Priority, Urgency, Impact, and Severity) as listed after the “-x” flag.

So, as you see, you can use the pdm_extract commands and functionality to extract data from the MDB right from the Service Desk application server without having to go into SQL or Oracle tools to do so from the database side.

I hope this has answered some questions for some folks out there!
Happy Extracting,
Jon Israel
Sr. Support Engineer
CA Technologies





****Below are the immages that are attached to this post***

Thanks for the great tip Jon! Check it out folks!

Chris

Great stuff Jon! Thank you!

thanks very much Jon
a useful tip there
regards
Donna
(now enjoying spring!)

Further information on pdm_extract.


1. https://support.ca.com has 78 Knowledge Documents on pdm_extract. For example:

Document ID: TEC428520
Title: How to extract data by date range using pdm_extract
https://comm.support.ca.com/?legacyid=TEC428520


Document ID: TEC471268
Title: What does pdm_backup do? What is the difference between pdm_backup and pdm_extract?
https://comm.support.ca.com/?legacyid=TEC471268


Document ID: TEC481497
Title: Extracting Contact Data for Service Desk r11 and above with pdm_extract
https://comm.support.ca.com/?legacyid=TEC481497

2. The Service Desk Manager product documentation, in particular the PDF files, contain syntax and usage.
The Administrator Guide has the main reference. See p927 for "pdm_extract--Extract Data from Database" for all supported switches and examples. (The -X switch to exclude tables is not listed.)

TIP Use Cntrl + F in Adobe Acrobat and point to the Service Desk documentation folder to find all instances of a keyword.

3. Additional documentation exists at support.ca.com with examples outside of Knowledge Documents or the product PDF, such as the "CA Service Desk Manager Green Book" and the "CA Unicenter Service Desk Integrations" guide, which may be useful for some scenarios.