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Working With the Master Index Data Manager

MIDM Object Profile Components

An object profile, also known as an enterprise record, is a set of information that describes characteristics of an individual object in the master index application. An object profile includes information from one or more source systems. The information can be divided up into child objects, which hold additional information about an object, such as address information, telephone information, or alias names.

A profile contains two types of records:

Source Records

Source records are different from the SBR in that each source record contains a system and local ID pair and only contains data from a specific system. The information in the source records of an object profile is used to determine the best values for the SBR in that profile. If an object profile only contains one source record, the SBR will be identical to that source record. However, if an object profile contains multiple source records, the SBR might be identical to one source record but will more likely include a combination of information from all source records. Certain actions against a source record will cause the SBR to be changed, such as updating, deactivating, or merging a source record. Each active object profile must have at least one active source record. If all source records in a profile are deactivated, then the entire profile will also be deactivated.

Single Best Record

The single best record (SBR) for an object profile is made up of a combination of information from all active source records associated with that object profile. The SBR represents the information that is determined by the master index application to be the most reliable and current of all source records in an object profile. The SBR is dynamic and is recalculated each time an update is made to an associated source record, a merge or unmerge affects the object profile, or a source record in the profile is deactivated or reactivated. You can use the overwrite capability of the MIDM to update the SBR directly or you can update a source record and allow the survivor calculator to determine how to update the SBR (for more information, see Survivor Calculator).

You can override the survivor calculator by specifying values for the SBR in two ways. You can use the overwrite capability to update a field, and that field remains locked and cannot be updated by changes to source records until the field is unlocked. You can also link a field in the SBR to the same field in one of the profile's source systems, and that SBR field will always contain the same value as the source system until the link is removed. For more information about the overwrites and linked fields, see Locking Field Values in the SBR.

Survivor Calculator

The survivor calculator determines which information from each source record in an object profile is stored in the SBR for that profile. The calculator uses information defined by the system administrator to calculate the SBR. By default, the survivor calculator uses a weighted strategy for most fields, using the relative reliability assigned to each system in combination with the reliability given to the most recently updated value.

For some fields, such as alias and auxiliary IDs, a union strategy is typically used. This means that all unique alias names and auxiliary IDs from all systems are included in the SBR. For detailed information about the survivor calculator and configuring the survival strategy, see Survivor Strategy Configuration in Understanding Sun Master Index Configuration Options and Defining the Master Index Survivor Calculator in Configuring Sun Master Indexes .