Standard reconciliation jobs

In most cases, you can use a standard reconciliation job or the standard rules to identify and merge your data. 

Unless you need different identification or merge precedence rules, you can use the standard reconciliation job with Identify and Merge activities. You can modify the options in the activities while still using the standard rules. 

If you want to change the identification or merge rules for a specific dataset, you must create have to create a custom job. To use custom rules, clear the Use standard rules check box. 

For merge, you can set a precedence value for a data set, or, if required, you can assign a precedence value to a particular class or attribute in a specific data set. For example a company, Calbro wants to keep the default precedence value of 800 for BMC_Product in the BMC Configuration Import data set, but they want to assign a higher precedence value to BMC_Product in the CALBRO.APPS data set because it is an import of software products that they consider more accurate. 

For identification, you cannot specify a rule for a particular data set, but you can check whether adding an attribute at a lower priority addresses the needs of a specific data set. For example, if Calbro knows that for the CALBRO.APPS data set, the TokenID, Name, and SerialNumber attributes are not sufficient to identify some instances, Calbro can add the custom CalbroID attribute that identifies those instances in that data set. By setting it to a priority of 3, the default rules work for most data sets, but for CALBRO.APPS after the priority 1 and 2 attributes fail to identify instances, the reconciliation engine uses the CalbroID attribute.

The standard job contains the most common reconciliation activities:

• Identifying class instances that are the same entity in two or more data sets.
• Merging class instances from one data set (such as discovery) to another data set (by default, the production data set BMC.ASSET).
• Purging instances to delete data that is not required.

Before you begin

• Confirm whether the standard rules are suitable. To edit the standard rules, see, 
  (Identification rules) Configuring reconciliation custom identification rules. 
  (Merge rules) Creating precedence sets and associations for reconciliation merge activities.
• Understand the guidelines for obtaining best results from the reconciliation jobs. For information about the guidelines, see Reconciliation best practices.

To create a standard reconciliation job

1. In CMDB Portal, select Jobs > Manage Reconciliation.
2. Click Create Job and enter a job name.

3. Select the appropriate settings for the job.
   To view the details of every setting, hover the cursor over each setting.

4. To use the standard rules for Identify and Merge activities, select Use Standard Rules for Dataset.
   

5. To add an Identify activity, click Add activity > Identify and perform the following steps:

    Steps to add Identify activity

   1. (Optional) Specify a name for the activity and configure the following parameters:

      • Namespace

      • Sequence

      • Status

      • Continue on Error

   2. Select Source and Production datasets from the lists.

   3. In Selected Dataset, click the Standard Rules icon to use an identification rule.
      

   4. (Optional) Set the preferences for the following options:
      • Generate IDs
      • Exclude Sub-classes
   5. (Optional) In Qualification, add a qualification set to select which classes and instances to include in the identification activity. 

      1. Clear the Use all classes and instances check box to restrict the Identify activity by using a qualification set.

      2. Click Select qualification ruleset to select a qualification set.

6. To add a Merge activity, click Add activity > Merge and perform the following steps:

    Steps to add Merge activity

   1. (Optional) Specify a name for the activity and configure the following parameters:

      • Namespace

      • Sequence

      • Status

      • Continue on Error

   2. Select Source and Target datasets from the lists.

      Important

      You can select multiple datasets as a source dataset in the Merge activity instead of creating multiple jobs to merge data into the same production dataset.

      
      

   3. In Selected Dataset, click the Standard Rules icon to view and add the standard merge precedence rule for the selected dataset.
      
   4. Select a Precedence association set for the datasets selected for this activity.
      In a standard reconciliation job, BMC Default Precedence set is selected by default and cannot be changed.
      To change the values in the precedence association set, see Creating precedence sets and associations for reconciliation merge activities.

   5. Set Merge Order based on your requirements:

      Merge order	Description
      By Class in separate transactions	The CIs are merged one class at a time. Only after the CIs in a class are merged, the CIs from the next class are merged. Tip: Use this option to keep the reconciliation performance high.
      Related CIs in one transaction	All CIs are merged at the same time.
      Related CIs in separate transactions	Only the CIs that belong in a hierarchy are merged at a time.

   6. (Optional) Select Include Unchanged CIs.

7. To add Purge activity, click Add Activity > Purge and perform the following steps:

    Steps to add Purge activity

   1. (Optional) Specify a name for the activity and configure the following parameters:

      • Namespace

      • Sequence

      • Status

      • Continue on Error

   2. Select Source dataset from the list.

   3. (Optional) In Qualification, add a qualification set to select the classes and instances to be purged. 

      1. Clear the Use all classes and instances checkbox to restrict the Purge activity by using a qualification set.

      2. Click Select qualification ruleset to select a qualification set.

   4. In Purge Instances, select the desired option:
      • Identified and unidentified - Both identified and unidentified instances are purged.
      • Identified - Only identified instances are purged.
      • Unidentified - Only unidentified instances are purged.
   5. (Optional) To verify the instances that are marked as deleted in the target dataset, select Verify Soft Deleted in Target Dataset.
      
8. (Optional) Select a schedule for the job run frequency.
9. Click Save.
10. (Optional) To run the job immediately, open the job from All Job Run Activities and click Start Job.