MDM Auto ID: Common Questions Asked

I was always thrilled with the idea of writing blog. When I look into MDM blogs and Articles section then I found that most of topics have already been covered. So I thought of writing about MDM Auto ID. I feel this is useful and informative to everyone especially for MDM Beginners. This is my first blog. So, I would try my best that this information is easily understood by everyone. What is MDM Auto ID Field: In simple words, it is a field of type INTEGER which automatically gets incremented by one for every new record created into MDM. It is also known as Unique Identifier. E.g. If you have 5 records in MDM with Auto ID 1 to 5 and you delete record with Auto ID 5, still next time when a new record gets created into MDM then Auto ID 6 will get created not Auto ID 5. That’s why it is a Unique Identifier and you can easily know that somebody has deleted record with Auto ID 5 in MDM and now it is not present. Commonly asked Questions: 1. Can we load our own value to the MDM Auto ID field, manually or Using Import Manager? No, as Auto ID field gets populated automatically for every new record created and incremented by one. Also Auto ID will always display as readable only. So you can’t set its value using source file through import manager. 2. Can we Syndicate the MDM Auto ID field to Target System? Yes, you can easily map your Auto ID field with target field and then can syndicate Auto ID. 3. In case of CMDM scenario, if I send data from MDM to distributing systems. Is this possible that MDM Auto ID field can be used as Global ID? No, this is not feasible. Because when records get syndicated to target systems and come again to MDM with more field information’s like Remote System’s local ID then you can’t make use of remote key concept as you can not map source field with MDM Auto ID during Import. What to do in this case: Solution is you need to create one more field of type integer/text in main table say MDM Global ID and populate this field using assignment expression with the help of Auto ID; you maintain the same Auto ID values for this MDM Global ID field. So that when this data comes to MDM with more fields’ information from remote system you can map source Global ID(MDM Auto ID) field with this MDM Global ID and map source Global ID(MDM Auto ID) clone field with Remote Key during Import. In this way, you can maintain remote keys of respective remote systems which you can see into MDM data manager by right clicking on record using Edit Key mappings. I assume that you are familiar with the concept of Key mapping into MDM. So I don’t discuss it here. I hope this will give everybody a fair idea about MDM Auto ID field