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About Data Change Request

Data Change Request (DCR) is a collection of suggested data changes.

Users who do not have rights to update objects, such as the customer sales representatives, can suggest changes. These suggested changes will be accumulated in Data Change Requests queued for review and approval by people with approval privileges, such as the data stewards. Examples of suggested data changes include adding a new attribute value, updating an attribute value, deleting an attribute value, and creating a new object along with referenced objects. Data Change Requests can be initiated using web browser-based user interface for Desktop or Mobile:

Note: To initiate DCRs, a user must have the INITIATE_CHANGE_REQUEST privilege.

Request For Review

In the Data Change Request Review pane, sub-attributes within the nested, reference, or complex attributes, and parent-nested attributes, have a label of the attribute value, as shown in these examples.

External Information of a DCR

To ensure that data stewards can make an informed decision about approving or rejecting a DCR, the ADDITIONAL DETAILS tab is available in the Data Change Request Review panel.

The ADDITIONAL DETAILS tab shows external information of a DCR related to an active task stored by the users. This can be any information that can help the data stewards during the approval process. This external information is available in the JSON format. Users can add additional details to a DCR by using the Add External Info to Data Change Request API.

Note: The ADDITIONAL DETAILS tab is available only for DCR tasks. However, DCR tasks without the data change request object (object deleted and task not validated) do not have the ADDITIONAL DETAILS tab.

Rejecting Attribute Level Data Changes

In the Inbox, you have the option of partially rejecting changes from a DCR.

Use Case - A user must be able to selectively reject attributes and approve a DCR partially.

Access Privileges

Partial reject is automatically enabled for users who have the DELETE permission on the MDM:data.changeRequests role. Out-of-the-box workflow processes work with system role ROLE_REVIEWER, which does not have this permission.

Therefore, existing customers may have this feature enabled automatically depending on permissions they have assigned to data stewards (workflow reviewers). Otherwise, customers must enable partial reject by using the User Management console application as follows:

  1. Create a new role with the exact permission (DELETE).

  2. Assign this role to user/users/group of users on the relevant tenants.

Task Action - The task must be assigned to your user account.

Rejecting Attributes Partially

You can partially reject the attributes in a Data Change Request for entities and relationships. This includes nested attributes and sub attributes of a nested attribute. In addition, you can reject the entire DCR that prevents the creation of the new entities or relationships. Perform the following steps to partially reject changes:

  1. Select the task by clicking on the task in the Inbox tab and view the detailed information on the right panel. When you mouse over the change, the REJECT option appears.

  2. Click the REJECT option corresponding to the change you want to reject. The rejected changes appear as struck out but are not deleted from the DCR till the task is approved. If you move to any other tab without approving the task, all rejections are canceled. If you choose not to reject the change from the DCR, click the UNREJECT button.

Known Limitations

Limitations to rejecting attributes:
  • Reject does not work for start/end dates, roles, and tags for new entities/relationships.
  • There is no validation of dependencies for rejected new entities. If there is a reference attribute for this entity, it will continue to exist without changes.
Rejecting Changes in Relationships

When changing a relationship:

  • The old relationship is removed.
  • A new relationship is added.

Hence, while rejecting the changes made to a relationship, both the actions remove and add must be rejected.

If both the actions are not rejected, the following changes may take place:

  • No relationships may exist if the added relationship is rejected and the removed relationship is applied.
  • Two relationships may exist if the added relationship is applied and the removed relationship is rejected.

To reject the relationship, refer to the steps mentioned under Rejecting Attributes Selectively.

Viewing Relationships in the DCR

Changes to relationships and their attributes, or new or deleted relationships, are shown in the right-side panel.

If a new relationship has been added and attributes are provided, a caret icon appears near the title of the relationship. Click the caret icon to see the added attributes.

If attributes have been added to an existing relationship, they are visible at once with dashed lines from the title of the relationship to each attribute. The same behavior occurs for attributes that have been changed.

If a relationship was deleted, no attributes are shown.

If you change or delete any attributes for a relationship, they are displayed similar to other attributes. Attributes for which no changes are made remain unaffected.

Email Notifications

When a DCR is assigned to a user for review, the user gets an email notification. When a DCR is approved or rejected, the DCR initiator gets an email notification with the approval status, name of the approver, and comments from the person who approved.