One of the most noticeable set of changes in CloverETL version 3.1 is the interface improvements, substantially improving Clover’s usability and understandability. These improvements save both new and old users valuable time when creating or manipulating their data transformation graphs and further cement CloverETL’s place as one of the most easy to use ETL tools on the market.

The biggest improvement was the addition of drag-and-drop functionality to a number of different aspects of Clover. You can drag files to the graph, files to components, files to metadata, and metadata to edges, saving innumerable clicks through menus.

We have also made it easier to link your metadata and edges while creating the edges. If you right-click on the Edge tool in your palette, it will give you a list of every metadata you have created on the current graph. If you select one of the metadata, whenever you create an edge with the edge tool, it will automatically assign that metadata to the edge.

Not only is it easier to link metadata and edges, we’ve also made it easier to create and manipulate the edges themselves. Edges can now be created simply by dragging from one component’s out port to another’s in port. If you find you want to change where the edge is connected, that too is now one-click. Simply click and drag an edge’s endpoints to any other port.

The last shortcut that version 3.1 added to CloverETL is an easier way to set the description on a component. Before, the description field was buried in the component’s properties, but now it has been moved to the header of the properties window. This improvement makes it substantially easier to clarify the purpose of your components, making your graph easier to read overall.