Survivorship
The rules that decide which value is kept when duplicate records are merged and they disagree, such as keeping the most recently updated address.
Common rules are most recent, most complete, and most trusted source. They are best set field by field, because the newest record does not hold the best value for everything.
Where it comes up
- Duplicate keys with conflicting valuesTwo rows share an identifier that should be unique, but disagree on other fields.
- Near-duplicate recordsTwo rows describe the same real thing but differ enough that an exact comparison misses them.
- The same entity in two systemsOne person or organization exists in two systems under different identifiers, with nothing linking the records.
See also
- Golden recordThe single best version of a customer, product, or other entity, assembled from all the records that describe it.
- MergeCombining two or more records judged to describe the same thing into a single record. The word is also used for joining two tables, and for merged cells in a spreadsheet; in data cleaning the first meaning is the usual one.
- DeduplicationFinding records that describe the same real thing and reducing them to one.