3. Create a submit form and mask your database

Step 4 -  Create Masking Submit Form

A submit form is a reusable form which can be embedded into the self-service portal for future use. Whenever any user wants to perform the defined masking activity, they can do so using the created form.

From Actions, choose ‘Create Data Masking Submit Form’.

 To use a form that has already been created, select ‘Add Components’ > ‘Attach Submit Form’. 

Step 5 - Mask your database

Now we can execute our masking job. From the top component, choose 'Execute' as the Action, and press the play button.

A form will appear to input your job details and parameters. 

1. Select the Database Connection ID to mask
2. Selecting Create audit reports will create excels which can be downloaded at the completion of a job. This will show the changes made to the database. 
   1. This will contain the data you are masking, so this is recommended only under special circumstances.
3. The number of batches to audit: Enter the size of a batch of rows to use in updating the database 
4. Validate masking rules but don’t update the database will check if your rules are working as intended without altering your database

Your job will now run, and if the audit reports option was selected, provide a .zip file to download.The database will be masked with the rulesets specified applied. If you have enabled auditing you will see an AuditResults.xlsx file which contains the pre-masking and replaced post-masking values.

Below is an example report where the first_name, and last_name column values have been replaced with synthetic values.

Exercise 3 - Create and execute submit forms

1. Create a submit form for masking
2. Execute form with the validate option to test the execution
3. Execute form with validate and audit report checked to see the results of the masking

Need help or want to check your work? Check the solution video here.

Proceed to Section 4 - Consistent masking and conditional masking >