Configuring history tracking

You can configure IBM Master Data Management to retain the history of your master data records and entities, enabling data stewards to view and compare historical attribute data.

A data engineer must configure whether the IBM Master Data Management service retains historical data. Storing history details increases the storage requirements of your database.

Data included in history tracking

History tracking retains the following types of data changes so that data stewards can view the history details from the Workspace:

  • Details of the user or system who initiated the update
  • A timestamp capturing the date and time of the update
  • The type of update:
    • Attribute or field value changes (update, create, or delete)
    • Linkage changes (create or delete)
    • Relationship changes (update, create, or delete)

Configuring history settings

When you first configure a new master data instance, you are prompted to enable or disable history tracking as part of the initial service configuration. For information about initially setting up a IBM Master Data Management instance, see Creating a master data configuration asset.

Required permissions
To configure history tracking, you must be a member of the DataEngineer user group for the IBM Master Data Management service.

If you need to change the history tracking settings after initial setup, open the instance settings page.

To change the history tracking settings of an existing IBM Master Data Management instance:

  1. From the Master data navigation menu, click Instance settings instance settings icon to open the instance settings page.

  2. In the History settings section, enable or disable history tracking.

    Remember: Storing history details increases the storage requirements of your database.

  3. Configure the retention period to determine how long historical data is kept before the system deletes it. The maximum retention period is 730 days, which is set by default.

    Changes to the retention period apply to all of the data in your master data instance. Be careful when shortening the retention period, as this change can result in the permanent loss of history tracking data.

    Changes to the retention period take some time to apply. After making a change, click Refresh status to monitor the job progress.

    Tip: Click View retention policy history to view up to 10 previous retention period configurations.

  4. Click Save.

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