The first step is to register with a Mx (Metadata Exchange) instance, shortly after registering your administrator will send you an email notifying you of your access details.
By default there are 4 levels of access, administrator, curator, user and guest. The basic differences between these rights are as follows: a guest will only be able to view finalised and deprecated models, a user will be able to view draft and finalised models, curator will be able to create and modify models and an administrator will be able to add new users; however different Mx instances may be set up with a variety of different access levels and rights, so it is best to consult your administrator to find out what rights and capabilities you have.
Once you login you should see a screen like the one following:
Which on first sight may seem a bit daunting. So we can divide the screen into sections, as shown below:
- Home button – clicking this will return the user to this view from anywhere inside the application.
- Quick Actions – A variety of action, listed below, this include the data item search – not to be confused with the model search in 3.
- General Models Search – This is a search for data models, it does not include other data items, for everything other than data models you need the Data Element search in 2 – explained in detail below.
- Tabs between “My Models” (otherwise known as favourites) and the whole catalogue of datasets. If you use the Mx a lot then you may wish to keep your “favourite” data models here. Click on the “Favourites” button and the model will appear in “My Models” (see below)
- Create (a new model) and Import (a model) Buttons.
The buttons in the right hand side (Quick Actions) grouping are:
Data Element Search Button 
Click on this and a new (search) screen will pop up, in which you can search for any data element, either in the current model or in any other model. This is the search for data items rather than complete models, in fact this search indexes all other metadata items in the Mx : Data Elements, Data Classes, Data Types, Assets, etc…and you can configure it to point at the current Data Model or include all Data Models in the Metadata Exchange.
Fast Actions Button
Fast Actions - Click on this to get a selection of actions - this menu may vary depending on your configuration. Each button will trigger an action that we detail in later sections.
Curator Button
This is a menu for curating data, which depending on the way the model catalogue has been set up will have a number of actions, all connected with data curating.
Administration settings Button
This will not appear unless you have administrative privileges, if you do it will enable you to perform a number of administrative task, again we will go into more detail elsewhere. Clicking the button will bring up a menu similar to the one illustrated below.
The User Button
This will allow the user to log out, to generate an API key for programmatic access to the catalogue or jump directly to the favourites.
In addition to these menu buttons a number of other ‘context-sensitive’ menu items will appear in the left hand side menu sections as the user explores the Mx, more on this later on.
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