Find Matching Entities in IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook

Answer

Finding matching entities is a two-stage process:

• Stage 1: find matching entities in your chart
• Stage 2: resolve the matching entities

Typically you want to run the process multiple times, until the number of duplications are satisfactorily reduced.

Stage 1 - Find matching entities

About this task

There are two ways in which you can initiate a search to find matching entities. You can either:

• Use the menu to search on only selected entities.

This requires you to set a matching threshold only, The results are automatically displayed in the Find Matching Entities window.

• Use the Find Matching Entities window.

You can choose a type of matching for the search, and then define the search criteria for the selected type of matching.

Starting a search by using the menu

Procedure

1. Select the entities that you want to search on, or while holding down the Ctrl key select entities.
2. Right-click the selected entities, and from the menu, select Smart Match Against Selection and then select a threshold from the submenu.
3. When you select Smart Match Against Selection from the menu, Analyst's Notebook searches all items on the chart that match with any of the selected chart items. The Find Matching Entities window is automatically shown (with the Smart Matching Against Selection method selected in the drop-down list). This shows either the matches found in the Matched Sets area, or displays the message No matches found. Click Setup to change the settings.
   

Note: When you set the threshold by using the menu, it is reflected in the Setup Smart Matching Against Selection window.

Searching for matches by using the Find Matching Entities window

About this task

To show the Find Matching Entities window:

• In the Common Task Pane, click Show Find Matching Entities in the Analytical Tasks panel.
• From the Analysis menu, select Find Matching Entities.

Procedure

• From the drop-down list at the bottom of the Find Matching Entities window, select a matching method to use. You can select Smart Matching, Smart Matching Against Selection, Label Matching, or Previously Linked Matches.
• Click Setup. A Setup window is shown:
  
  

Matching Method	Dialog displayed	You can select ....
Smart Matching	Setup Smart Matching	The threshold for the strength of a match between items that have the same semantic type The entities are matched; for example, selected entities on the chart, only revealed entities, or entities that are assigned or derive from a specific semantic type
Smart Matching Against Selection Setup	Smart Matching Against Selection	The threshold for the strength of a match between items that have the same semantic type
Label Matching	Setup Label Matching	Whether letters or digits or both are matched on the identity (or label) of an entity Whether certain characters are ignored Whether the case of characters is ignored The entities that are matched; for example, selected entities on the chart, only revealed entities, like-for-like entity types, or entities that assigned a specific semantic type
Previously Linked Matches	Setup Previously Linked Matches	The entities that are matched; for example, selected entities on the chart, only revealed entities, or entities that are assigned or derive from a specific semantic type

• Complete the Setup dialog as required and click OK.
• Click Find to start the search. Any matches that are found are displayed as matched sets in the Matched Sets area of the Find Matching Entities dialog. If no matches are found, the message No matches found. Click Setup to change the settings is displayed in the Members of Selected Set area. This message appears for all methods of matching except Smart Matching Against Selection, which displays the message No matches found for the selected entities.

Stage 2 - Resolve matching entities

About this task

Where matched entities are found on your chart, they are displayed in the tree view in the Matched Sets area. This tree view shows the matched entities as a matched set, identified by a set label, for example DANNY KENT (six Entities). Click the Expand sign to the left of the matched set to show its contents. The label for the matched set displays the label of the entity with the most matches in the set.

In each Matched Set, the entity with the highest number of matches in the set is shown at the top of the set. This matched set is typically of more interest. Use the matched set as your starting point to resolve the other matches. The other matched entities in the set are listed in alphabetical order.

In each matched set, Analyst's Notebook selects the most matched entity as the target entity for a merge. The target entity is the entity into which other selected entities can be merged. The label of the target entity is underlined in the tree view. You can change the target entity to another entity if required.

The options available to you once matched entities are found in your chart are numerous; however, you typically need to:

Procedure

1. Select the entities in the matched set that you want to examine further.
   
   As you click an entity in the tree view, an icon that represents the entity is displayed in the chart fragment in the Members of Selected Set area. The target entity is displayed with a larger icon in the chart fragment, and all those entities that are matches in the set are linked. The link label is either be Match, you used Label Matching, or Match: n ( where n equals a number on the 1-9 threshold), if you used Smart Matching or Smart Matching Against Selection. The labels on the links are displayed in bold if the link represents a new match.
   
   The chart fragment helps you visualize which entities match on your chart. It is a condensed version of your chart; some entities might be much further apart than they are displayed in the chart fragment. You can move the icons, change the layout, and zoom in and out of the chart fragment without affecting your chart. However, when you select, or choose to merge, or link items, these actions are simultaneously carried out in your chart.
   
2. Examine the entities displayed in the chart fragment in the Members of Selected Set area.
   
   You typically want to know more about the entities in the matched set to see if they really are the same entity. If the matching entities were created from a database, it might be possible that there are properties in their data records that are matching. To help with this you can double-click items in the chart fragment to view their data records. If the matching entities were created manually in the chart, it might be just the labels of the entities that are matching. You can determine this by looking at the labels in the Matched Sets tree view.
   
3. Decide whether to run an action on the entities within the chart fragment.
   
   You might choose to:

• Begin a new search using different match settings.
• Ignore some icons and select others in the chart fragment so that they can be highlighted in the chart for editing or deletion.
• Transfer the links in the chart fragment to your chart so that you can highlight the anomalies and return to them at a later date.
• Merge selected entities into the target entity.
• Exclude matched sets from further Find Matching Entities searches. If Exclude is used, the link label for the selected match is Does Not Match, and the match is not will not be returned in further searches.

You can use either of the Matched Sets toolbar buttons to link or merge individually selected entities from a number of matched sets, or use the Members of Selected Set toolbar buttons to link, merge, or exclude selected entitles in the chart fragment:



Note: Only selected entities that have a link displayed between them in the chart fragment can be linked together in your chart.

The Members of Selected Set toolbar has an additional set of buttons for changing the items' layouts and moving around within the chart fragments.

Note: If the Find Matching Entities window is not docked, not all of the above toolbar buttons is visible. To make them all of the toolbar buttons visible, move your mouse pointer over the edge of the dialog and when the pointer changes to look like this , hold down the left mouse key and drag the edge of the window to the right until all of the buttons are visible.