Data Authoring Patterns

The data lifecycle and authoring patterns depend on the entity type. This document explain the various patterns applicable by entity types.

Authoring Basic Entities

With basic entities:

  • Creating a new record creates a golden record via the certification process.

  • Updating a golden record modifies it and submits the changes to the certification process.

  • Importing either creates a new record if the imported record ID is not found in the hub, or updates the existing record that is found.

  • An update performed on an erroneous record takes this record, modifies it and resubmits it to the hub.

Basic entity records authoring in application uses direct authoring or workflows, with all the capabilities of steppers. You can manage complex clusters of entity records (customers and contacts) within steppers.

Authoring ID or Fuzzy Matched Entities

With matched entities, there are two types of golden records:

  • Golden records consolidated from publishers' master records. Such records are referred to as Master-Based.

  • Golden records created directly in the applications. These records do not exist for any publisher. Such records are referred to as Data Entry-Based, as they do not have associated master records.

Matched entities authoring works on golden records or master records.

When authoring golden records:

  • Creating a new golden record creates a Data Entry-Based record, that only exist in the hub.

  • Updating a golden record or fixing a golden error depends on the record type:

    • If the record is Data Entry-Based, then the update is applied to the golden record via the certification process. Such a record can be entirely modified.

    • If the record is Master-Based, then an Override is applied to the consolidated golden record data. This override overwrites certain attributes according to the Survivorship Rules defined for the entity.

  • The import and mass update actions on golden records automatically take care of the record type, using the golden record update or override patterns as needed.

Golden records authoring in applications uses direct authoring or workflows, with all the capabilities of steppers. You can manage complex clusters of entity records (customers and contacts) within steppers.

When authoring master records:

  • Creating, updating, mass-updating or importing master records or source errors creates or updates the publisher records on behalf of publishers, submitting them to matching and consolidation as if the new records or changes were submitted by the publisher. Such master records may be later on overwritten by records with the same ID sent by the same publisher.

Master records authoring supports only direct authoring, using steppers limited to their root entity only. This means that master records authoring is performed on an entity basis, and not on a cluster of records. Users can only manage records from one entity at a time (customers or contacts).
Master records authoring is more suitable for data stewards to create or fix records before the publishers in an interim period, that is before the publisher actually pushes those records. It is recommended to use golden record authoring for business users.