Defining the property values of merged i2 Analyze records

By default, the mechanism for controlling the property values of merged records is not enabled in a deployment of i2 Analyze. To define which property values are used for merged records, you must inform i2 Analyze that you intend to do this and then customize views in the Information Store database.

Important: You must write and test the SQL view statements for defining the property values of merged records in a non-production deployment of i2 Analyze. If you create an incorrect view, you might have to clear all the data from the system. Before you implement your view definitions in a production system, you must complete extensive testing in your development and test environments.

To inform i2 Analyze that you intend to define the property values of merged records, you must run the enableMergedPropertyValues toolkit task. You can take control of the property values for records of specific item types, or all item types in the i2 Analyze schema.

When you run the toolkit task, two views are created for each item type that you specify. The views are created in the IS_Public schema, and are named with the display name of each item type. The two views provide the mechanism for viewing the data that contributes to the merged i2 Analyze records, and for creating rules to calculate a single value for each property:

The view whose name is suffixed with _MCV contains all the data that contributed to each merged i2 Analyze record of that item type. This is the merge contributors view. This view is designed for you to inspect the column names and property values from the data in the Information Store. You must not modify the merge contributors view.
For more information about the merge contributors view, see The merge contributors view.
The view whose name is suffixed with _MPVDV is where you can define the rules for calculating the property values of merged records. This is the merged property values definition view. You can modify this view to define how the merged property values are calculated from the data in the merge contributors view.
When you generate the merged property values definition view, the default source-last-updated-time behavior is implemented in the view.
For more information about modifying the definition, and some examples, see The merged property values definition view.

For example, the Person entity type from the example law enforcement schema produces the IS_Public.E_Person_MCV and IS_Public.E_Person_MPVDV views.

Identify the item types that you want to define the property values for.
For more information about why you might want to do this, see Define how property values of merged records are calculated.
Run the enableMergedPropertyValues toolkit task for each of the item types that you identified in step 1.
1. Open a command prompt and navigate to the toolkit/scripts directory.
2. Run the enableMergedPropertyValues toolkit task:
  For example, to create the views for the Person entity type from the example law enforcement schema, run the following command:
```
setup -t enableMergedPropertyValues -p schemaTypeId=ET5
```
You can run the toolkit task with schemaTypeId=ItemTypeId or without any arguments to create the views for all item types in the i2 Analyze schema. You can run the task multiple times with different item type identifiers.
Inspect the merge contributors view (_MCV) that is created in the IS_Public schema and identify any rules to create for calculating the property values of merged records.
For more information about the merge contributors view, see The merge contributors view.
Modify the SQL create statement for the merged property values definition view (_MPVDV) that is created in the IS_Public schema to create a view that implements the rules you identified in step 3.
For more information about modifying the definition, and some examples, see The merged property values definition view.

After you ingest data that causes correlation operations, ensure that the property values for the merged i2 Analyze records match your expectations by searching for them. If you can ingest data successfully, and the property values are correct in your testing, the merged property values definition view is correct. If the property values are not correct in all cases, you must continue to modify the merged property values definition view and test the results until your requirements are met.

It is recommended that you keep a backup of your complete merged property values definition view.

During the testing of your deployment, you might need to clear any test data from the system to ensure that your view is behaving correctly. For more information, see Clearing data from the system.

You must maintain the merged property values definition view for the lifetime of your deployment. If you change the i2 Analyze schema file, you must update the SQL statement for your view to match any changes. For example, if you add a property type to an item type, the new property must be added to the SQL statement for your merged property values definition view. You do not need to update the merge contributors view. The merge contributors view is updated when the schema is updated so that you can inspect the column name for the new property. For more information, see How to maintain your merged property values definition view.

After you test the view definition in your non-production database, you can implement the view on your production database.