When you are creating or editing an import specification that is aligned with an i2
Analyze schema, you can tell the import wizard to use local matching to identify duplicate
records in your incoming data, and with records on your chart.
About this task
Local matching is useful for identifying multiple records in the incoming data and on
the chart. For example, a file that contains telephone call data is likely to refer
to the same telephone more than once. In that case, you probably want the chart to
contain a single telephone entity with links to other telephones, rather than lots
of separate one-to-one relationships. Analyst's Notebook also tells you if
information in your data import already exists on your target chart. If you do not
need to search for duplicates in the Information Store, local matching gives you
more control over the properties you are most interested in, as you define the
matches during the import process. Also custom types cannot be matched with records
in the Information Store. If system matching is unchecked on the Record
Matching page, you can use local matching for system and custom
types. Alternatively, you can check system matching to run at the same time as local
matching. System types are matched against the rules defined by your system
administator, while custom type matching is defined by you. Note that for custom
types to match, they must have the same name and identifier.
Procedure
-
Examine the Imported types box, which contains a list of
the entities and links in your import design. The list includes both system and
custom types. If you click the check box for system matching, any system types
that are used in system matching rules are removed from the list.
-
Select the type that you want to work with.
The available options are different, depending on whether you choose an
entity type or a link type.
For entity types, you specify which property
values must match in order for two incoming entities to be considered as
duplicates. When the values of all the selected properties match, only one
of the entities is imported. If a selected property has no value (but all of
the other values match), you can decide whether to treat it as a
duplicate.
For link types, you have the additional option never to
consider two links as duplicates, regardless of any property values.
Furthermore, the list of properties implicitly includes the direction of a
link. When two links have different directions, they are never treated as
duplicates.
-
Decide which property values determine what constitutes a match in your
data.
For example, it might be reasonable in some cases to match Person entities
according to the combination of their given names and surnames. For data from a
different source, you might use a passport number or social security number
instead.
-
Click the check boxes in the Identity column to specify
the properties to use for matching.
Imported types without any selected properties have a yellow triangle next to
their name. If properties are selected, the triangle changes to the icon for
that type. This is the case for both system and custom types.
-
To prevent the import of less complete records, click the check box for
Do not import a new record if any of the selected properties have
blank values. This means that if any of the properties you
select for matching have blank values, the import wizard ignores those records.
This option is unchecked by default.
Results
When you run the import, a progress window is displayed. If matches are found with
records on the chart, the import is paused. Another window is displayed that shows you
the number of matches between your imported data and charted records. This information
is to help you understand what is happening to your records during the import process.
Duplicate records in the incoming data are not imported, if you chose to match on a
specific property. For example, if your data contains 1000 records for the same main
telephone number and you chose to match 'Main number', only 1 record for that telephone
number is placed on the chart. If your incoming records contain more properties than the
matched record on the chart, that record is enriched so the data is not lost.
What to do next
Click Continue to proceed with the import. When the import
completes, a message is displayed to show timing details and the numbers of records that
were created or replaced. The Analyst's Notebook records bar gives more information
about the types of records now on your chart. Alternatively, you can click
Cancel to end the import and return to the chart.
