Vault
During Collection, NIM imports data from your external Systems and stores it in the vault. (The details of the collection are defined in the systems' underlying Connectors.) The data in the vault is then used for all of NIM's subsequent operations. The current data in the vault is the only data upon which NIM operates.
The data in the vault, as interpreted through your configured Data models and Inter-system relations, becomes the basis for Filters, which are NIM's "workhorse" feature. Filters let you retrieve and manipulate data from the vault, and feed that data into other objects. Almost everything you do in NIM is based on filters.. Filters always, and only, operate upon the vault. Their output represents some subset of your current vault data.
NIM both reads and writes to the vault, but at different times. During Collection, NIM reads the latest data from external systems and writes it into the vault. (If the vault already contains data for a system, the old data in the vault is overwritten.) Oppositely, when your Mappings and/or your Active role model are executed through Jobs, NIM writes the results into external systems. Thus, the vault is an "intermediary" between NIM and your external systems.
Although NIM only operates on data currently in the vault, it does retain previously collected data on your hard disk. These historical collections are stored on a per-system basis. In this state, this data is inactive and not available to your filters.
Because the vault and filters are the cornerstone of NIM, it's important to set them up correctly from the start. For example, if a filter's logic breaks down on edge cases, the mistake will affect all other objects which depend on that filter (as well as downstream systems that consume output from NIM). Likewise, any overly complicated filter configurations will make troubleshooting harder. We also recommend sticking to a consistent filter naming scheme that works for your organization. Consistent filter names make NIM workflows much easier to understand and maintain.
To manually update a system's data in the vault, Collect and load a system.
Tip
The vault has no dedicated screen in NIM. To "see" the current vault contents, simply Create a filter. The tables available in the filter are the current contents of the vault. Similarly, any time you View a table's data, you are viewing data in the vault.