# 8. Policy and Simulation: What's New

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## 1. XDS Builder for the Simulator

This version of Designer has been enhanced to provide a graphical editor to create XDS Input documents for the simulator. The editor allows you to select the operation type as well as provide the operation parameters, attributes and values. The parameters and values of the simulator are saved for the current Designer session only. To make the simulator input available after Designer has been shut down, save the input document to disk.
The following image shows an example of an Add operation.
The simulator still allows users to edit the raw XDS by switching to the Source tab. When you switch between the XDS Builder and Source tabs, the editor being activated is updated, based on the current editor content. However, if the source editor is already active and contains a non-XDS document, the following warning is displayed when yu switch to the XDS Builder.
The parameter table allows you to edit the parameter values for the given operation. The parameters available in the table are controlled by the selected operation. You can edit the parameter values by double-clicking the value or by selecting the value and clicking the Edit button.
All parameter values are edited inline, with the exception of the Class and Operation Data parameters. Editing these parameters launches a dialog box that allows you to select a class name or edit the operation data. The Rename operation shown below uses an inline editor to set the parameter that removes the old object name.
Parameters that contain a reference to an object enable the Browse button. Although these values can be edited inline, the Browse button allows you to browse for an object in the Application or Identity Vault, depending on the current simulation point. If the simulation point is set to Input, Output, or Schema Mapping Inbound when the Browse button is selected, the simulator browses the application and allows you to select an object. Clicking the Browse button with any other simulation point selected launches the Identity Vault browser and allows you to select an object.
Note: For the 3.0 M1 release, browsing an application is not supported. When the simulation point is one of the policy sets that are in the applications namespace, the following dialog box is displayed.
Editing the Class parameter launches either the application or Identity Vault schema browser. If the desired class is not included in the application or Identity Vault schema, it can be added during the simulation process. The following images show the application and Identity Vault schema browsers that are launched when editing the Class parameter.
Application Schema Browser
Identity Vault Schema Browser
Editing the Operation Data parameter launches the operation data dialog box. This dialog box allows you to create an operation data element for the selected operation by specifying attributes and values that should be included in the node as well as an XML fragment. The following image shows the operation data dialog box with two attributes and an XML fragment.
The two attributes and XML fragment create an operation data element that looks like the following when you switch to the Source tab.
For more information on the purpose and function of the operation data, refer to the Identity Manager documentation.
The attributes section of the XDS Builder is displayed for the Add, Modify, and Query operations. It allows you to add attributes and values to the XDS document. To add a new attribute, select the Add Attribute button to the right of the attribute section.
Based on the simulation point, the button launches either the application or Identity Vault attribute browser for the class specified in the parameter table. If the specified class does not exist in the application or Identity Vault schema, you are prompted to add the class and edit the attributes.
Attributes that are already included in the attribute list are filtered from the attribute browser. To add a value to an attribute, select the attribute in the tree, then click the Add button. To edit a value, select the value, then click Edit or double-click the attribute value. Depending on the attribute syntax, the appropriate value editor is launched.
The following image shows a value editor for an Identity Vault attribute that has an Object ACL syntax. Similar editors are available for all Identity Vault and application attribute types.
Single component values can be edited inline by selecting the value and pressing the F2 key. A value or attribute can be removed by selecting it, then clicking the Remove button or pressing the Delete key.
Note: Some attribute editors for the 3.0 M1 release are not completed. These editors show a dialog box with no controls. For this release, you must switch to the Source tab to edit these attribute values.

## 2. Simulator Toolbar

A new toolbar located in the upper right corner of the simulator allows you to perform such actions as importing an input document from a file, the application, or the Identity Vault. It also allows you to clear the active editor or save the document to file to be reused at a later time. The input page contains an additional option to control simulation options such as the trace level.
Selecting the Browse button launches the Identity Vault browser, which allows you to browse for an object to use as a template for the input document. If the simulation point is set to Input, Output, or Schema Mapping Inbound, the warning shown below is displayed.
This dialog box informs you that the input document should be created by using the application's attributes names and value formats. It allows you to continue, warning you that the Identity Vault attribute names will be converted to the corresponding application attribute, if a Schema Mapping policy is specified in the drivers Schema Mapping policy set.
Currently, two simulation options are displayed when selecting the options toolbar item on the input document page. These options control the level of debug tracing generated when simulating the policies.
The XSL Trace Level option controls the amount of debug information displayed when simulating an XSLT style sheet. The XSL trace level can be any value between 0 and 4, where zero is no tracing and 4 is the highest level of debugging.
The Driver Trace Level option controls the amount of debug information generated when simulating a Policy Script or Mapping policy and is equivalent to the Driver Trace Level set on the Driver object.

## 3. Simulation Points

The Publisher and Subscriber channels were removed as simulation points in this release of Designer. The simulator in Designer is a policy simulator, not an Identity Manager engine simulator. Allowing simulation of the channel was causing confusion because the Identity Manager engine performed operations and functions that the simulator was unable to duplicate in an offline environment.

| Other Enhancements and Bug Fixes
| Now allows users to change trace level for simulation. Click here for details. Has enhanced features for building XDS input documents for simulation. Click here for details. The simulation preference for the Java Extensions path no longer locks in on a Designer version-specific directory. Click here for details. You can now simulate a mapping table policy if the relative name is used and the mapping table name has a '.. Click here for details. The Policy Simulator simulating a channel on modify now correctly processes matching rules. Click here for details. The Policy Set view now updates when switching between drivers. Click here for details. The DirXML-DriverCacheLimit attribute is now equal during a compare.. Click here for details.

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