Defining the property values of merged records

This section describes an example of the process to define how property values of merged records are calculated in a Docker environment. The process includes the following high-level steps:

  • Enabling merged property values
    • To define the view, enable and then modify it to meet your correlation requirements
  • Updating property value definitions
  • Ingest data that correlates and review its properties

The examples/pre-prod/walkthroughs/change-management/mergedPropertyValuesWalkthrough.sh script is a worked example that demonstrates how to enable and modify the views in a containerized environment.

Note: Before you complete this walkthrough, reset your environment to the base configuration. For more information, see Resetting your environment.

Default merge property behavior

  • To demonstrate the default behavior, use the examples/pre-prod/walkthroughs/change-management/ingestDataWalkthrough.sh script to ingest some correlated data. For more information about ingesting the data, see Ingesting data into the Information Store.

  • During the ingestion walk-through, the default behavior is used to determine the property values of the correlated record. In the default behavior, the property values from the merge contributor with the most recent value for source_last_updated are used.

For more information about the how the property values for merged records are calculated, see Define how property values of merged records are calculated

After you ingest the data, in Analyst's Notebook search for Julie Yochum and add the returned entity to the chart. Keep the chart open for the remainder of the walkthrough script.

Enabling merged property values

To inform i2 Analyze that you intend to define the property values of merged records, run the enableMergedPropertyValues.sh tool. You can take control of the property values for records of specific item types, or all item types in the i2 Analyze schema. Note that this operation must be performed by the database administrator.

See the Enabling merged property values section of the walkthrough script.

The run_etl_toolkit_tool_as_dba client function is used to run the enableMergedPropertyValues.sh tool.

In the mergedPropertyValuesWalkthrough.sh, the views are created for the Person item type. The enableMergedPropertyValues.sh tool is used in the Create the merged property views for the CORRELATED_SCHEMA_TYPE_IDS section.

Updating property value definitions

The walkthrough provides an example .sql script that drops the existing IS_Public.E_Person_MPVDV view and replaces it with another. The new view prioritizes property values from merge contributors that come from the ingestion source names EXAMPLE_1 over values from EXAMPLE_2 and any other sources.
The createAlternativeMergedPropertyValuesView.sql script is in examples/pre-prod/walkthroughs/configurationChanges.

After the views are enabled, the merged property values definition view (Person_MPVDV) is modified to change how the property values of correlated records are calculated. Note, this step is also performed by the database administrator.

See the Updating property value definitions section of the walkthrough script.

The run_sql_server_command_as_dba client functions in used to run the createAlternativeMergedPropertyValuesView.sql script.

Reingesting the data

The property values of merged records do not update when the MPVDV views are modified. To update the values of existing records, you must reingest at least one of the merge contributors to the record.

To do this, use the ingestDataWalkthrough.sh script to ingest some data the correlates. For more information about ingesting the data, see Ingesting data into the Information Store.

See the Reingesting the data section of the walkthrough script.

After the data is ingested, in the Analyst's Notebook chart that you have open, select the Julie Yochum item and click Get changes.

The name of the item changes to Julia Yocham, because the property values that make up the name are now from the merge contributor where the ingestion source name is EXAMPLE_1.