How Data Stewardship Tasks are Evaluated and Categorized

For each add or update of a source record, Universal Identity assesses whether or not a data stewardship task should be created.

A data stewardship task is a manual review item that can be viewed and acted upon in the Universal Identity user interface.

How Updates are Evaluated

Additional categories of data stewardship tasks are used to notify you when certain match scenarios are found. When an add or update is posted into Universal Identity, it is evaluated using two different match thresholds:

• Automatic Match threshold – This is the match similarity score at (or above) which two records being compared are deemed to be a definite match – they represent the same person. This threshold is defaulted to 0.8 (on a 0.0-1.0 scale), but the setting can be adjusted by Verato support personnel. 
• Manual Review threshold – This is a lower match similarity score than the Automatic Match threshold. When two records are compared and the similarity score is below the Automatic Match threshold but above the Manual Review threshold, they are deemed to be a potential match.

Using a combination of the match comparison score, the thresholds, and the source of the records involved in a matching decision, the following different categories of data stewardship tasks can be created:

Potential Match – Cross Source

• Description —This category indicates that two identities were compared with a resulting similarity score above the Manual Review threshold but below the Automatic Match threshold.
• Data source —The records of the two identities came from different data sources.
• Result — The Universal Identity does not automatically link the two identities together in a single Link ID – but the identities are a close potential match, so a data steward may want to review the identities in the Universal Identity user interface to assess whether they represent the same person.

Potential Match – Same Source

• Description –This category indicates that two identities were compared with a resulting similarity score above the Manual Review threshold but below the Automatic Match threshold.
• Data Source – The records come from the SAME data source.
• Result – The Universal Identity does not automatically link the two identities together in a single Link ID – but the identities are a close potential match, so a data steward may want to review the identities in the Universal Identity user interface to assess whether they represent the same person. A data stewardship task in the category of “Potential Match – Same Source” may contain identities made up of source records from several sources, but it will contain at least two different identities (each with a different Link ID) with source records from the same source.

Match – Same Source

• Description – This category indicates that two identities were compared with a resulting similarity score above the Automatic Match threshold.
• Data Source – The records come from the SAME data source.
• Result –The end result of the comparison is that Universal Identity automatically links the two identities together in a single Link ID. Because the two identities involve duplication of an identity within the same data source, a data steward will want to be aware of this outcome and determine whether any action needs to be taken in the originating source system.

Prevented Match – Same Source

• Description – This category indicates that two identities were compared with a resulting similarity score above the Automatic Match threshold
• Data Source – The records come from the SAME data source, but your Universal Identity instance is configured to prevent automatic matches within records from the same source (either all sources, or just specific sources).
• Result – The Universal Identity prevents the automatic link of the two identities. Because the two identities involve duplication of an identity within the same data source, a data steward will want to be aware of this outcome and determine whether any action needs to be taken in the originating source system.

The creation of data stewardship tasks, the Manual Review threshold, and the Automatic Link threshold are configurable settings for each Universal Identity instance.

The following category of data stewardship tasks is not created by default:

• Match – Same Source and Prevented Match - Same Source