09. Glossary of Terms

Last modified by Tom Jardine on 06/11/2025, 14:24

Term

Description

API

Application programming interface. In CXAIR, using APIs allows third-party data, such as Google Maps information, to be incorporated into reporting.

Build Type / Index Method

Refreshing or rebuilding an Index results in the latest data being made available to users. The specified build type / Index method will change how this is accounted for:

Complete

The entire Index is rebuilt.

Incremental

New and changed records are added as new rows. This maintains the history of a record that may have changed over time. No de-duplication is applied. An Incremental Identifier is required to denote which field is used to identify a change.

Timeline

Allows the building of ‘point in time’ Indexes, where comparisons between the data can be made.

Cumulative

New records are added as new rows and changed records are amended to deduplicate the same record when an Incremental Identifier and Primary Key are set.

CXAIR

Connexica Ad hoc Interactive Reporter.

Data Source

The origin of the data. When configuring a Data Source, the data type is chosen and the relevant connection details / location is established.

Data Source Group

Data Source Groups group Data Sources together. Part of the configuration of a Data Source Group is to specify the physical location of the Index files to be held on disk.

Drill Down

Access the underlying records that constitute a report or Query.

Index

Indexes group Data Source Groups together and act as the presentation layer that determines how ends users view and query the information.

Lucene

Apache Lucene is CXAIR’s underpinning data retrieval technology.

RegEX

Regular Expression. Allows structure to be derived from unstructured data.

Search Engine

Search Engines group Indexes together to create a logical collection of searchable data. Any implementation can have any number of Search Engines. Search Engines are the easiest way of partitioning up data from a security perspective, as administrators can restrict which Search Engines a user, or group of users, has access to.

SQL

Structured query language. Used to extract from and manage databases. In CXAIR, this task is achieved through natural language search and user-friendly interfaces.