Product External Rules

External rules are fundamental to ensuring the accuracy, consistency, and reliability of data management within the Open Cloud MDM system. These rules govern the way data is structured, validated, and managed, particularly within the Product domain and product category attributes. While the technical intricacies can be complex, their real-world impact is substantial and spans across various industries.

In this overview, we aim to provide a simplified explanation of these rules, shedding light on their significance and practical applications in sectors such as retail, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, and data indexing. Understanding the essence of these rules is crucial for appreciating how Open Cloud MDM empowers organizations to uphold precise and efficient data management practices.

Identifying products and categories by equivalencies

Open Cloud MDM stores alternative system keys (equivalencies) allow it to maintain product information that is stored and updated on external systems.

Open Cloud MDM is not always the system of record for the information it stores. In particular, for the Product domain the system generally does not provide the gold copy of product definitions. It is customary to receive updates to product information from external systems that are the system of record for those products and their associated categories.

To facilitate this integration, Open Cloud MDM system allows for the alternative system keys or identifiers to be stored along with products, categories, or both. These identifiers, which are also called equivalences, have a set of operational services that allow for them to be added, updated and retrieved from Open Cloud MDM. Furthermore, Open Cloud MDM provides external rules that allow you to customize equivalencies. For example, you might concatenate particularly complex keys.

Product Domain Rules:

• These rules are responsible for shaping and managing product data.
• They ensure the accurate generation of product and category keys.
• Validation of dates, uniqueness, and business keys for categories is a key role.
• Some rules assess whether categories can be inactivated and validate the validity of product associations.
• Others handle diverse product data types and actions, including collapsing or splitting.

Product Category Attributes Rules:

• These rules concentrate on attributes linked to product categories.
• They scrutinize whether timeframes for various entities, such as product types or categories, align correctly.
• Specific rules validate updates and relationships related to particular attributes.
• Others guarantee the appropriate update of spec value indexes during indexing processes.

Use Cases:

• Retail: These rules aid in maintaining precise product information for retailers, ensuring consistent inventory management and efficient sales tracking.
• Financial Services: Banks rely on these rules to validate and manage financial product data, facilitating accurate trading and compliance.
• Manufacturing: Manufacturers leverage these rules to effectively manage product variants and maintain uniform production processes.
• Healthcare: Healthcare organizations benefit from rules that ensure product attributes comply with regulations, particularly for medications.
• Data Indexing: Rules associated with spec value indexing enhance search functionality and optimize data retrieval efficiency.

By grasping the role and significance of these external rules, organizations can harness the full potential of Open Cloud MDM to uphold data accuracy and operational excellence across diverse domains.