External Replication Is Not Working as Expected in SAS® Visual Investigator

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Starting in SAS Visual Investigator 10.7 and later, you can store replicated records or observations in an external table in a database. This practice is commonly referred as external replication.

If you encounter a configuration issue with external replication, see the Common External Replication Configuration Issue in SAS® Visual Investigator article.

However, you might encounter some of the following usage-related issues while using external replication for a flow:

Errors When Running a Published Flow

After you configure the external replication table correctly in the flow, it might fail with the following errors when you run a published flow. Normally this issue occurs when your external replication table is in Oracle. The error appears on the Jobs tab of the Manage Investigate and Search interface or in the sas-vsd-service_<timestamp>.log file.

com.sas.svi.commons.cas.CASSession : xxx@xx(47a7beb5-d3f0-4d49-b35d-aa18bccd897b) CAS: save: Function failed.

com.sas.cas.CASException: Function failed. (severity=2 reason=0 statusCode=310002)

3 NOTE: Performing serial SaveTable action using SAS Data Connector to Oracle.

5 ERROR: General error ORA-00910: specified length too long for its datatype

5 ERROR: Function failed.

5 ERROR: The action stopped due to errors.

debug=0x80fff802:TKTS_ERROR

The job failed for the flow "xxx". Error: The table "{0}.{1}" could not be created.

CASException: Function failed.

Performing serial SaveTable action using SAS Data Connector to Oracle.

General error ORA-00910: specified length too long for its datatype

Function failed.

The action stopped due to errors.

Resolution: Complete the steps in SAS Note 66106. Note that the SAS Note is also applicable to SAS^® Visual Investigator 10.8.

The Context Record Contains an Empty Column Value

When you run a published flow, the generated alert's context record might contain an empty, blank, or null value for a column. It is expected for a value to be associated with that column. For example, in the following screenshot, you expect a value to be in the City column.

Resolution: The most likely culprit for this issue is that, for that specific column (City), you have defined an infinite length in your source and replication table. For example, you might have specified “VARCHAR" instead of "VARCHAR (100)". Columns must have a defined length according to the Administrative Tasks: Data Configuration Information section in the SAS Visual Investigator documentation for your version. Hence, you need to fix the column schema in your source and replication tables.

No Context Records Appear in the UI

After running a published flow, context records might not appear in the UI for the generated alert, as shown below:

The following explain why you might encounter this issue:

You might not have selected/enabled the Replicate records from scenario context option on the Properties tab for the desired scenario of the published flow.
You might not have configured the entity correctly in SAS Visual Investigator.
Upon further inspection, you might realize that context records are not getting populated in the configured external replication table. If the generated alerts are tied with the DATA step scenarios, then review the Using DATA Step Code to Design a Scenario section in the SAS Visual Investigator documentation for your version. Most likely you missed a requirement.