Resolve Data Conflicts with Merge and Unmerge

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Merge two master records and describe how the resulting field values are determined.
  
• Unmerge a source record from a master record into separate or single master records.
  

Introduction

In Unit 2, you learned how to manually override a surviving field value when survivorship rules select an outdated result. You also learned how to remove that override when the source systems catch up.

But what happens when the automation can’t make the call for you? Sometimes the system fails to recognize that two records belong to the same supplier, often because they were registered separately in different systems, like procurement and HR. Other times, source records that seemed like they belonged together actually represent two distinct suppliers with similar names. In both cases, Supplier 360 gives you the tools to intervene: merge and unmerge.

In this unit, you follow the Coral Cloud Resorts data governance team as they encounter and resolve both scenarios.

When to Merge

With Automated Merge, Supplier 360 automatically merges records that meet the configured match criteria. But data can often be messy and complex. Automated merge processes might skip certain potential duplicates, which places them in a manual review queue instead. Others are missed entirely because small data variations—a different spelling of a supplier name, a slightly different tax ID format—prevent a confident automated match.

Two Records for One Supplier

The Coral Cloud Resorts data governance team notices something unusual. When they search for “NovaChem Solutions” in Supplier 360, two master records appear.

• Record A: Created from the procurement source systems, which lists the supplier’s legal name as “NovaChem Solutions Limited”
  
• Record B: Created from the finance source systems, which lists the same supplier as “Nova Chem Solution”
  

The slight name variation prevented the automated match process from flagging these as duplicates. But the data governance team can tell from other details that these two records represent the same supplier. It’s time to merge.

How Merges Work

When you manually merge two master records, Supplier 360 creates a new master record and uses trust scores and survivorship criteria to determine which field values it contains. All source records from both merged master records become source records of the newly created master record.

Think back to Unit 1. Source records from each system carry a trust score for every field. When two master records are merged, all their contributing source records combine and survivorship runs again across the combined set. The result is a new master record that reflects the best available data from all sources, not just the records from one side of the merge.

Follow the instructions to merge the records.

1. Select the business entity and use the search box to search for the records.
   
2. Open the record to which you want to merge other records, or select the records you want to merge. The first search result becomes the master record to which the other selected records are merged.
   
3. Select Selected | Merge Records. The Merge Records page appears.
   

4. To submit records for merge, select Merge.
   

Depending on your user role privileges, you can either merge immediately or send the merge proposal for approval.

What Happens to the Surviving Field Values

The survivorship process runs in a specific order when it evaluates the combined source records.

1. Survivorship rules: The field value that satisfies the configured rule (Decay, Maximum, or Minimum) survives. If values or trust scores are equal, the process moves to the next step.
   
2. Source system ranking: If trust scores differ, the value from the highest-ranked source system survives.
   
3. Source last updated date: If trust scores are equal, the value from the record with the most recent source last updated date survives.
   
4. Last updated record in Supplier 360: If dates are equal, the most recently updated record in the system wins.
   
5. Latest created record: If all else is equal, the most recently created record’s value survives.
   

When to Unmerge

Merging resolves duplication—but unmerging corrects an incorrect association. Sometimes a source record ends up grouped with the wrong master record. This can happen because of an erroneous automated match, or because two suppliers truly are different entities despite similar data.

One Master Record for Two Suppliers

Three months after the NovaChem Solutions merge, the compliance team flags a different issue. While reviewing supplier certifications, they notice that a master record for “Pacific Supply Group” contains source records from two completely different entities.

• Source records from the procurement and finance systems represent Pacific Supply Group Inc., a legitimate cleaning products vendor based in Seattle.
  
• Source records from an enrichment service and the HR system represent Pacific Supply Corp., a separate company based in Portland that shares a similar name and overlapping product categories.
  

An automated match job grouped them together because their names, product types, and Pacific Northwest addresses were similar enough to exceed the match threshold. But in reality, they’re different suppliers. The compliance team needs to unmerge them.

How Unmerge Works

When you unmerge source records, you remove one or more source records from a master record and place them into a new or separate master record. If the unmerged record reverts to a business ID it held before merging, Supplier 360 restores the relationships associated with that business ID as if the merge never occurred.

By default, when you unmerge source records from a master record, Supplier 360 ensures history doesn't repeat itself. The system automatically excludes those unmerged source records from being automatically remerged into the same master record during future match and merge jobs.

In Informatica Master Data Management (MDM) SaaS, a business ID typically refers to a unique identifier assigned to a business entity within the MDM system. This identifier is crucial for distinguishing one business entity from another.

What Happens to Overrides During Unmerge

Overriding a field value locks it at the highest possible trust score. What happens to those overrides when source records are unmerged?

When source records that contribute overridden field values are unmerged from a master record, the new master record retains the overridden values and their trust scores. Trust scores are only recalculated for the unmerged source records themselves—the manual survivorship override values stay locked in on the new master record until they’re explicitly removed.

For example, imagine the compliance team unmerges Pacific Supply Corp’s source records, and those records had contributed an overridden Supplier Type value. The new master record for Pacific Supply Corp carries that override forward. It doesn’t revert to survivorship-based calculation until someone removes the override on the new record.

Resources

• Informatica Documentation: Configure Survivorship (login required)