HCM Data Loader Best Practices

This topic highlights some best practices for data loading. Follow these recommendations to ensure successful creation and maintenance of data using HCM Data Loader.

Source Keys

The source key is the recommended key type to use for all implementations. If you supply a source key when you create your data, then you can also update or simply reference that data using source keys.

You can't update some objects if you identify them using only user keys. For example, you can't update most components of the Worker object if you supply only a user key. The attribute that you want to change is often the attribute that's used to identify the record. For example, in the Person Address component, the AddressLine1 attribute is used both to identify the address to update and to supply the new value. Therefore, you're recommended to use source keys whenever possible. You can also update source keys. You may want to do this when the source key value is auto-generated.

Data Migration

When creating business objects using HCM Data Loader:

• Deliver one object type in each .zip file. For example, create one .zip file for jobs, one for grades, one for workers, and so on. To avoid data-reference errors, you must ensure that you load .zip files in the correct order and fix any errors before loading the next file.

• Purge the stage table data regularly for data sets that you no longer need, especially if you're loading large volumes of data.

• Understand and follow the rules for creating date-effective data.

Tip: HCM Data Loader can load very large volumes of data from a single file. However, do consider the practical challenges, such as error management and the length of the transition period, associated with large data loads. Best practice is to split large loads into logical groupings so that you can extract, transform, and load the data more easily. For example, when loading workers you could load ex-employees separately from current, active employees. If this grouping still leaves you with very large data loads, then you could define subgroups of records based on other significant criteria.

Updating Objects

When updating business objects using HCM Data Loader:

• Understand and follow the rules for maintaining date-effective data. In particular, always include the SET PURGE_FUTURE_CHANGES N instruction in the .dat file to ensure that any existing future-dated changes are retained.

• Supply all business-object files in the same .zip file. HCM Data Loader processes them in the correct order. Referenced data is loaded before the data that references it.

• Supply any changed attribute values and a unique reference to the record that you're updating. HCM Data Loader validates every attribute name in the METADATA line.

• Never include both DELETE and MERGE instructions for the same record in the same file. HCM Data Loader doesn't guarantee the order in which the file lines are processed.