Source Keys

A source key is the ID that identifies a business object in its source system. Source keys are supported only for integration-enabled business objects. You can use source keys when creating or updating business objects.

You're recommended to use source keys for all implementations but particularly for ongoing integrations, where data is maintained in the source system.

Source-Key Structure

A source key has the two components shown in this table.

Component	Description
Source-system owner	Identifies where the data originated.
Source-system ID	ID used in the source system. The ID must be unique for the business-object component and source-system owner.

Having a source-system owner component to the key enables you to upload data from multiple source systems for the same business objects. For example, you may have person data in both US and UK databases to combine in one Oracle HCM Cloud system. The source-system ID doesn't have to be unique across both source systems. It must be unique only for the business-object component and source-system owner.

If you don't have an obvious source-system ID for a record, then you can generate or derive one. For example, you could derive a source-system ID for a person address by concatenating the person number with the address type.

Source keys aren't held against the created record. They exist in the Integration Key Map table.

Source Keys for Date-Effective Business Objects

If you're supplying date-effective history for an object, then you must supply the source system IDs for every date-effective record in the file. The values must be the same for each line of the date-effective history.

Default Source Keys

If you provide no source key when creating an object, then the source key is created automatically. The default source-system owner is FUSION and the default source-system ID is the surrogate ID. You can update the source key later using the Source Key business object. In the Source Key business object, you supply the new source key and a reference to the object that you're updating.

Source-System Owner Values

The source-system owner value is validated against the HRC_SOURCE_SYSTEM_OWNER lookup type. You must add your source-system names to this lookup type before loading data using source-system references. Use the Manage Common Lookups task in the Setup and Maintenance work area to update HRC_SOURCE_SYSTEM_OWNER.