Import bridges can be used for metadata harvesting into the repository of a Metadata Management (MM) solution. The metadata to be harvested can be very large, especially from Business Intelligence (BI) environments which may contain thousands of reports. Consequently some import bridges are implemented as a "Multi Model" bridge managing the large amount of metadata in multiple Model files. This approach also allows for incremental harvesting where the import bridge can check what has changed since the last import date, and return an updated "table of contents" indicating which models have been added, modified or deleted and import only the new or updated models. Such feature is supported only by a limited amount of import bridges listed below:
o Erwin Data Modeler's Mart
o IDERA ER/Studio Repository
o IBM Cognos Content Manager
o Microsoft SQL Server Analysis and Reporting Services (SSAS, SSRS)
o MicroStrategy Intelligence Server
o Oracle Business Intelligence(Siebel Analytics) Enterprise Edition
o QlikTech QlikView
o SAP BusinessObjects Repository
o SAS Business Intelligence
o Tableau