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Set up Informatica PowerCenter

TL;DR

Export your PowerCenter repository to XML and package the files for the Atlan connector

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Prepare the files the Informatica PowerCenter connector needs: the repository XML exports and the parameter files that go with them. Atlan extracts lineage from these files. It doesn't connect to a live PowerCenter repository or database. You export them yourself, package them into .zip archives, and either upload them when you create the crawler workflow or stage them in a cloud object store for the workflow to import.

Parameter files are technically optional, but most PowerCenter mappings use parameters to resolve connections, schemas, and table names at runtime. Without the matching parameter files, lineage for those mappings is incomplete, so plan to prepare them in almost all cases.

Prerequisites​

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • Informatica PowerCenter 7, 8, 9, or 10
  • A PowerCenter account with read permission on the repository objects you want to export and the Access Repository Manager privilege
  • The pmrep command-line utility or the PowerCenter client (Repository Manager or Designer) to run the export
  • Atlan connector permissions to create and configure connectors

Export necessary repository objects to XML files​

Export the folders you want to catalog from your PowerCenter repository. Use whichever method suits your environment.

  1. Connect to your repository with pmrep connect.

  2. Export each folder with pmrep objectexport, writing one XML file per folder. Include dependent objects and the objects referenced by shortcuts so lineage that passes through shortcuts resolves—for example, add the -b, -r, -m, and -s flags.

    pmrep objectexport -f <FolderName> -u <FolderName>.xml -b -r -m -s

Naming and content requirements​

The connector reads the repository and folder names from the <REPOSITORY NAME> and <FOLDER NAME> declarations inside each export—not from the filename. Follow these rules:

  • Name each file after its PowerCenter folder—for example, SalesETL.xml for the SalesETL folder. This keeps uploads easy to review; the connector itself identifies folders from the XML content.
  • Multi-folder files are supported. When you export a workflow folder with its dependencies, PowerCenter adds the shared folders it references as extra sections in the same XML—leave them in. The connector processes every folder that contains workflows and uses the remaining folders to resolve shortcut references; it doesn't treat them as separate crawls.
  • Include at least one folder that contains workflows in every upload. A folder that holds only shared or reusable objects has no workflows of its own, so an upload made up entirely of such folders fails with an empty-extraction error. Include shared objects as dependencies of a workflow folder (see the export step earlier).
  • Each XML file must contain its <REPOSITORY NAME> and <FOLDER NAME> declarations.
  • All XML files in a single upload or storage prefix must belong to the same repository. Each folder that contains workflows may appear in only one file—shared dependency folders repeating across files is expected and fine. Workflow folder names can't contain commas, and names that differ only by spaces versus underscores (such as Sales ETL and Sales_ETL) collide.

Gather parameter files​

If your mappings use parameters such as $$Param or $Param, collect the corresponding parameter files so the connector can resolve those tokens to real connection, schema, and table names during extraction. Without them, parameterized values are flagged as unresolved and may reduce lineage accuracy.

Supported parameter file extensions: .par, .txt, and .properties.

Package files into zip​

  1. Compress your repository XML exports into a standard .zip archive. Add the .xml files directly to the archive—a .zip nested one level inside the archive is extracted, but anything nested deeper is skipped, so keep the layout flat.
  2. If you gathered parameter files, compress them into a separate .zip archive.

If you import from cloud storage instead of uploading, you can stage either the same .zip archives or the loose .xml files under a prefix.

warning

Use a standard, uncompressed-password .zip. The connector rejects encrypted archives, symbolic links, and entries with absolute paths for security reasons.

Next steps​

Crawl Informatica PowerCenter assets: Create the workflow, provide your archives, and run the crawl to build lineage