Demo 7 - StrToStrAssertion

Structure to Structure Assertion (StrToStr) is a type of assertion created for the OYSTER system that forces multiple identity structures found in an existing EIS to be consolidated into a single identity structure. This is used to fix false negative matches that were produced by the OYSTER match rules in previous runs. Through the use of StrToStr Assertions multiple identity structures that are later found to actually match can be forced to consolidate. These consolidations are based on previous knowledge of the references in the identity structures.

This run will use the test data file named ‘StrToStrAssertionTest.txt’, illustrated in Figure 1. This data consists of two reference composed by three attributes. The first attribute is the RefID, this is a unique identifier associated to each record. The second attribute is the OID attribute; this attribute is assigned by the user and one of the OysterIDs from the input identity file that the user wants to merge. The last attribute is the AssertStrToStr attribute; this is set by the user and should match for the input references that contain the identities specified by the OID value that the user wants to merge.

Figure 1: StrToStrAssertionTest.txt

StrToStr Assertion Runs do not require any Match Rules to be specified since OYSTER bases its decisions solely on the values assigned by the users to the OID and AssertStrToStr field. Users are however required to specify which field is to be used for Assertions by using the “@OID” and “@AssertStrToStr” keyword in the StrToStrAssertionSourceDescriptor.xml file.

Enter ‘StrToStrAssertionRunScript.xml’ and press Enter to perform the run as shown in Figure 2.

Information about the run will be displayed in the Command Prompt. For this run, there is one references processed and grouped as 2 identities. The OYSTER run statistics for this run are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: OYSTER Run Statistics for StrToStr Assertion.

After the run finishes, the Output folder will contain the StrToStrAssertionsOutputIdentities.idty, Identity Change Report.txt, StrToStrAssertionsOutputIdentities.emap, and StrToStrAssertionsOutputIdentities.indx files as shown in Figure 4.

OYSTER creates no link index file when running in StrToStr Assertion mode.

StrToStr Assertion runs cause OYSTER to update an identity output file. The updated file was stored it in the StrToStrAssertionsOutputIdentities.idty file. This file is the updated Identity Knowledge Base that can be updated and maintained in future runs. The contents of this file are shown in Figure 5. You will also note that the ID Assigned to the Modification log directly corresponds to the RunID in the Trace allowing for easy tracking of a records origin and easy to see which references were added in the current run.

Note that in the above run, no rules were defined but through StrToStr Assertion, identity FYONETPU881DH2L0 was merged with identity XVI8NV5E03OWX86Y. You will also note that as we continue to update the identity knowledgebase that was originally created by the Identity Capture run, the Modification history now shows the original creation, the Identity Update run, the RefToStr Assertion run, and the current StrToStr Run.

The Identity Change Report for this run, shown in Figure 6, shows that four EIS were read in as input, and three EIS were written to the new idty file. This is correct as the purpose of this run was to merge two of the existing structures into a single structure.

You may replace the input data in the AssertionsSource.txt file with your data, and edit the StrToStrAssertionsSourceDescriptor.xml, StrToStrAssertionsAttributes.xml, and StrToStrAssertionRunScript.xml files to correspond to your new data. Detailed information for each of the XML configurations can be found in the OYSTER Reference Guide.

In this scenario, the StrToStr run was used to force the Super Man record to merge with the Eddie Jones record as it was found that Eddie has recently changed his name and the information was already stored in multiple EIS within the knowledgebase. This is the point of the StrToStr Assertion, which is to fix false negative resolutions made by the system.

Back to OYSTER Demonstration Run page