How to set up rules in the merger tool?

Merger tool is a powerful tool and is used when there is a duplicate metadata, or you think that some metadata is talking about the same data, and you want to merge it into one.

Steps to execute metadata merging:

1. Click ‘Toolbox’, either from the left side panel or from the profile dropdown.

   

2. Scroll down and click on the ‘Go to Metadata merge tool’.

   

3. To perform merging, create a merge rule by clicking on ‘New merge rule’.

   

4. On this page, select the metadata type you want to merge. Start writing the name of the metadata, for example, object class, and the dropdown will show the results, select the metadata name from the dropdown.

   

5. Select source metadata to merge, click in the text box, you will see all the existing object classes in the dropdown. You can also type the id of the object class or name; the dropdown will filter the metadata based on your search.

   

6. You can select multiple source metadata to merge, but only one target metadata.

7. Click on ‘Preview changes’ to see the changes.

   

8. Click on ‘Save merge rules’.

   

9. This page gives you the summary about the changes your rule will make in the system.

   If you want to execute the rule, click on ‘Execute merge’, if not, just leave it, the rule is created and is saved in the registry. You can come back anytime to execute it.

   

10. Once executed, you will see the ‘Merged completed successfully’ message on the page.

    

11. Now, if you click on the source metadata link, it will show a message saying, the item has been merged into ‘Person’.

    

12. There is an awesome feature in the metadata merge tool to undo the merge at any time. Go back to the toolbox, you will see all the merge rules you have added. Click on the one, you want to undo/execute.

    

    Voila, you can see the undo merge button, click on it to revert the changes.

    

    It will show a message ‘Undo performed successfully’

    

Before executing merging:

Customer object class looks like below and is implemented in 20 data elements and 20 data element concepts.

If you’ll click on the ‘Data Elements implementing this object class’, it will show the 20 data elements using ‘Customer’ as an object class.

For better understanding, let’s click on the first one ‘Customer: Age – Text’. It looks like the below:

Person object class looks like below and is not implemented in any data element or data element concept.

Let’s see what happens to the customer linkages if it is merged with Person.

After Merging

The Customer object class shows a message that the item has been merged into another item. Also, earlier customer was implemented in 20 Data elements and 20 data elements concepts, which has now been moved to Person object class.

Also, in the Customer Data element, Customer object class has now been replaced with Person and the change is reflected in the Data Element Concept as well as in Data Element.