Modifying Master Index Configuration Files

Over time, you might need to make changes to your configuration files, such as adding fields or objects to the object structure, changing queries, or fine-tuning the matching process. Whenever you make a change to a master index configuration file, you must undeploy the master index server project, regenerate the application, and then redeploy the project.

This section provides tips for updating components of the configuration files. In order for any of these changes to take affect, you must regenerate the application and rebuild and redeploy the project.

Updating the Object Structure

If you make any changes to the object structure, keep the following in mind.

• If you want the new fields or objects to appear on the MIDM, make sure to add them to the first section of midm.xml and to any of the page definitions later in the file (this includes search pages).

• If the new fields require normalization, parsing, or phonetic encoding, define the new structures in mefa.xml.

• If a new field will be used for matching, add it to the blocking query used for match processing as well as to the match string in mefa.xml.

Updating Normalization and Standardization Structures

If you define normalization, standardization, or phonetic encoding for fields that are not currently defined in mefa.xml, or if you change existing standardization structures, make sure to do the following.

• Use the appropriate standardization type, domain selector, and field IDs.

• Add the new fields that will store the standardized versions of the original field value to the appropriate objects in object.xml.

• Add new columns to the database to store the standardized field values.

Updating the Match String

If you make changes to the match string, update the database indexes and the blocking query in query.xml accordingly. For example, if you remove a field from the match string, you might also want to remove that field from the blocking query and database indexes. If you add a field to the match string, add the field to the blocking query and to the appropriate database index to maintain performance.