11 Matching and Merging Request Items

Matching and merging refers to the process of matching incoming request items for adding new nodes to nodes that already exist nodes in a node type in order to avoid duplicate nodes, and then merging the changes from the incoming request items into the nodes in the viewpoint.

Data managers perform matching on request items from different data sources by using the matching workbench. The matching and merging process follows this general sequence:

1. The request items are brought in (manually, through a subscription, or through a load file).
2. The data manager creates and runs a match for a particular node type and data source. See Creating and Running New Matches and Understanding Data Sources.
3. The matching workbench displays the existing nodes and all of the potential matches as determined by the matching rules that were configured for each data source. See Understanding Match Results and Creating, Editing, and Deleting Matching Rules.
4. The data manager reviews the matches and accepts or rejects each match, and then applies the changes. See Reviewing Match Results and Applying Changes.
5. The accepted matches are applied to the request and the request items are merged with the existing nodes. The property values of the request items are updated as defined by the survivorship rules. See Creating, Editing, and Deleting Survivorship Rules.
6. The accepted matches are retained for future matching operations. The system stores accepted matches by data source and node type so that the next time a request item comes in for the same data source and node type, the match to an existing node is performed automatically. See Understanding Automatic Matching and Merging Using Prior Match Results.

For more information about the matching and merging process, see Working with Matching and Merging.