MDM Workflows 

MDM offers multiple layers of data management capabilities for maintaining data integrity, enforcing business logic, and automating business processes, as follows:

·        Data integrity. At the core layer, MDM offers flexible schema management and an abstract object model that enforces data integrity with a variety of innovative features, including pick lists, enumerated text attributes, measurement data types, and so on.

·        Validations. Layered upon data integrity, MDM validations are Excel-like expressions that allow you to enforce rules and business logic by defining tests for a variety of conditions, and then to execute a validation or validation group against one or more records.

·        Workflows. At the outer layer, MDM workflows consist of a sequence of steps that allow you to orchestrate a series of operations that include user tasks, validations, and approvals, automating business processes at the data management level.

 

These three concentric layers of data management around a core of MDM data are illustrated in the figure below.

The MDM data management workflow described in this section complements and layers upon both the data integrity features of MDM and MDM validations, already described in previous sections.

Workflow also dovetails with the MDM check out mechanism, allowing a workflow to proceed to completion on a private, hidden copy of the records of the job.