Supported Key Types

When planning to integrate data from one system to another, you must select key types to identify records uniquely. This topic introduces the key types that HCM Data Loader supports.

What Keys Identify

In HCM Data Loader, you use unique keys to identify:

• The record that you're creating or updating.

• The parent of the record that you're creating or updating.

  The parent record may either be in the same data file or exist already in Oracle HCM Cloud.

• Any objects referenced by the record that you're creating or updating.

Supported Key Types

HCM Data Loader supports the following key types, which you can use for all types of object references. When more than one key value exists for an object, key references are resolved in this order:

1. Oracle Fusion Globally Unique Identifier (GUID)

2. Source key

3. Oracle Fusion surrogate ID

4. User key

If you supply multiple key values, then no cross-validation occurs. For example, if you supply both a GUID and a source key, then the GUID is used and the source key is ignored. If the source key identifies a different record from the GUID, then no error is raised.

Tip: Whenever possible, use source keys for both creating and updating business objects.

Key-Type Features

The following table summarizes the main features of the available key types. The Create and Update columns indicate whether you can use the key type when creating and updating objects.

Key Type	Create	Update	Held on Object	Type	Generated Automatically
GUID	No	Yes	No	Hexadecimal	Yes
Surrogate ID	No	Yes (see note)	Yes	Numeric	Yes
Source Key	Yes	Yes	No	Alphanumeric	Conditionally (see note)
User Key	Yes	Yes (see note)	Yes	Alphanumeric	No

Note: You can use surrogate IDs when updating objects, but the IDs may not be readily available to Oracle HCM Cloud users. Default source keys are generated only if you don't supply a source key when creating an object. You can't use user keys alone when updating some objects because their values are subject to change.

Keys that aren't held on the object exist in the Integration Key Map table.

Foreign-Object References

Oracle Fusion GUIDs and surrogate IDs are generated only when the associated record is successfully created in Oracle HCM Cloud. Source keys aren't recognized in Oracle HCM Cloud until the associated record exists in Oracle HCM Cloud. Therefore, before you attempt to load data that references foreign objects, you must ensure that those foreign objects exist in Oracle HCM Cloud. For a new implementation, you're recommended to load each business object separately and ensure that it loads successfully before importing the next. If you supply all business objects in the same .zip file, then HCM Data Loader loads them in order of dependency. In this case, a reference to a foreign object fails only if the referenced object failed to load.