Right-clicking a table in the left pane and selecting Display Indexes from the context menu lists the indexes for the table in the middle pane. Alternatively, you can double-click the Index object type in the left pane, to display all indexes in the repository or a specific group or project.
In the middle pane, right-click an index, and the following options are displayed:
- Properties
- Create Index
- Drop Index
- Delete Metadata and Drop Index
- Create via Scheduler
- Projects
- Build
Properties
The Properties screen (see example below) can be selected via the right-click context menu when positioned on an index name in the middle pane. The Update Buttons: Update <- and Update -> are used to move to the previous and next index respectively. The Update Buttons are not available when browsing all indexes in a group, project, or repository.
SQL Server example:
The fields in the General section are described below:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Index Name | Typically the table short name is followed by:
|
| Index Description | Free flow description of the index. |
| Active |
|
| Business Key | Denotes a business key. |
| Artificial Key | When enabled indicates that this is the surrogate (artificial) key generated by the system. |
| Unique | Specifies that the index is unique. If both unique and artificial are set it is assumed to be a primary key constraint and it is added as such. |
| Index Type | Database-specific type of index On SQL Server the options are:
|
| Index Columns | Shows the columns in the order they will be applied to the index. The order can be changed using the up/down buttons at the left. |
| Non-Key (Include) Columns | Extend a Non-clustered Index to include Non-Key columns in addition to the key columns. |
| Index Filter Predicate | A filtered index is an optimized Non-clustered index, which uses a filter predicate to |
| Enable Parallel Build Degree | Activates parallel creation /build of the index. For unsupported database versions (Pre SQL2005) leave disabled. |
| Additional Index Create Options | Database-specific-and-compliant options to include in the generated CREATE INDEX statement. |
The fields in the Storage section are described below:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Filegroup/Tablespace | Default Filegroup/Tablespace of the index that determines the storage location it is created. Select (Default) to use the default. |
| Compress | Compress index to reduce disk and memory use. For unsupported database versions (Pre SQL2008) select (Not Defined). |
| Enable Fill Factor | Setting this will enable the setting of the Fill Factor. For unsupported database versions (Pre SQL2005) leave disabled. |
| Sort In tempdb | Use the tempdb to store the intermediate sort results that are used to build the index, which may reduce the index build time if tempdb is on different disks to the index. |
The fields in the Scheduler section are described below:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Drop Index before Table Update | Drop the index before running the table update procedure and recreate the index after the update procedure has completed. |
| Index Rebuild Frequency | Optional frequency that the index is automatically rebuilt by the Scheduler. |
Indexes are normally managed by the scheduler as part of the normal processing of a table.
Extended Properties
Extended property variables can be set for index objects. An extended property's scope is defined by object type but the value for the variable can be set for the table and each index independently. Refer to Creating an Extended Property Definition for details.
Automatically created indexes are recreated each time the table's procedure is rebuilt. Therefore, the values set for extended properties in automatically created indexes are lost when they are recreated. Manually created indexes and their extended properties are persisted.
Similar to the extended properties defined for tables and connections, extended properties defined in indexes can be accessed from templates, including create index DDL, drop index DDL and update procedure/script.