1. HCM Data Loader
  2. Data Deletion Using HCM Data Loader

Data Deletion Using HCM Data Loader

You can delete many objects using HCM Data Loader, regardless of whether they were loaded using HCM Data Loader. This topic explains how to delete an object or its components and identifies any restrictions.

Tip: As you can't recover a deleted object, try to correct your data instead of deleting and recreating it.

What You Can and Can't Delete

You can delete:

  • Most complete business objects, except Worker.

  • Most individual business-object components.

  • Some child components of the Worker object. For example, you can delete the Person Email component of a worker object.

When you delete a parent object, its child components and any translation objects are also deleted. For example, to delete a Grade object and its child components, you create a DELETE instruction for the Grade discriminator. To delete only a Grade Rate Value child component, you create a DELETE instruction for the GradeRateValue discriminator.

You can't delete:

  • Individual date-effective records

  • Individual translation objects

  • Worker objects

Note: Before you delete an object, ensure that other business objects don't refer to it.

For information about whether you can delete a component, see the business-object details on the View Business Objects page in the Data Exchange work area.

DELETE Instructions

To delete an object, include the DELETE instruction in the relevant data file. For example, you could delete a Job Family object by including these lines in the JobFamily.dat file:

METADATA|JobFamily|EffectiveStartDate|EffectiveEndDate|JobFamilyName
DELETE|JobFamily|2012/10/01|4712/12/31|Sales01

These rules apply:

  • You can't include DELETE instructions in translation data files.

  • You must not supply a DELETE instruction for a record that has a MERGE instruction in the same file. HCM Data Loader doesn't know which instruction to process first.

Deleting Date-Effective Objects

To delete a date-effective object identified by user keys, you must supply both the effective start and effective end dates. If the object is identified using any of the other key types, then the effective start and end dates are optional.

Here's a tutorial on creating and maintaining data with HCM Data Loader Create and Maintain Data with HDL