Exploring relationship data in IBM Match 360

Explore the relationships between your entities and records to gain new insight about your data. Create or edit relationships between records (record-to-record), between entities (entity-to-entity), or between an entity and a record (entity-to-record or record-to-entity).

Before you can explore or work with relationships, a data engineer user must have already defined one or more relationship types. A data engineer might also have bulk-loaded relationship data into the system. For more information about these tasks, see Customizing your data types and Adding data and mapping it to your data types.

In this topic:

Exploring relationships

To find the details of a relationship, you must know at least one of the participants in the relationship. Search for either the source or target member of the related pair, then view the record or entity in the IBM Match 360 workspace view to see relationship details.

To find and explore relationships:

  1. From the Master data navigation menu, click Search search icon to open the master data search page.

  2. Search for the record or entity for which you want to view relationships.

    For more information about searches, see Exploring master data entities and records

  3. From the search results, use the record or entity's three-dot action menu or View in Workspace icon view in workspace icon to select it for further exploration in the Workspace tab. When you send an entity or record to the Workspace tab, you can more closely review its details and compare it to any other entities or records. You can also view its various relationships. Send as many records and entities as you are interested in to the Workspace tab to view and compare their details.

  4. Choose the Workspace tab to review and compare the details of any entities or records that are selected for exploration. In the Recently viewed panel, you'll see a list of the records and entities that you have recently selected for exploration from the search screen.

  5. Select a record or entity and then click the Relationships tab to view relationships that this record or entity is a part of.

  6. Click on a relationship to see its details. To add related records to your Workspace tab, click them from the relationship details view.

Adding a relationship

From the Workspace tab, add a relationship to a selected record or entity.

Tip: To make the process of defining a relationship easier, start by populating your Workspace tab with the records and entities that you want to use as endpoints in this relationship.

To add a relationship:

  1. Select an entity or record on the Workspace tab.

  2. Click the Relationships tab, then click Create relationship.

  3. In the Relationship source field, identify the origin of this relationship information.

  4. Click Select to define the relationship type. Choose a relationship type, then click Select.

    The available relationship types are defined in the data type definitions. If you do not see an appropriate relationship type listed, ask a data engineer in your organization to add one.

  5. Choose whether the current record or entity should be used as the source endpoint or target endpoint in this relationship. Use the provided relationship preview to help you decide what to choose. Click Next

  6. Click Select target to choose one or more records and entities to associate with the current endpoint in this relationship. Click Explore to see a list of records and entities that are already in your Workspace tab or click Search to locate new ones.

  7. When you have found the endpoints that you want to add to this relationship, select them. Preview the chosen records in the Selected targets panel, then click Select.

  8. Use the relationship preview screen to review the relationship that you are creating.

  9. To add more endpoints to this relationship, or to change a selected endpoint, click Select records.

  10. When you are done, click Create to add this relationship to IBM Match 360.

You can now see the new relationship from the Relationships tab of each of the relationship's endpoints. Click on a relationship to see its details.

Editing an existing relationship

You can edit the attributes of an existing relationship. If there aren't any attributes, you can add new attributes to the relationship.

Restriction: You cannot edit the relationship type or the source or target endpoints of an existing relationship. If you need to update these pieces of information, you must delete the a relationship and create a new one in its place.

To edit an existing relationship:

  1. Select a record or entity on the Workspace tab.
  2. Click the Relationships tab and select the relationship that you want to edit.
  3. Click the Edit relationship icon edit relationship icon.
  4. Click an existing attribute to edit its values or click Add attribute to create a new one.
  5. When you are done, click Save to update the relationship in the system.

Deleting a relationship

When you delete a relationship, both sides (endpoints) of the relationship are removed and cannot be restored. The associated record or entity data is not removed.

To delete a relationship:

  1. Select a record or entity on the Workspace tab.
  2. Click the Relationships tab and select the relationship that you want to edit.
  3. Click the Delete relationship icon delete icon.
  4. Carefully review the details on the warning dialog to ensure that you are deleting the right relationship.
  5. If you are sure that you want to delete this relationship, click Delete.

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