Source keys and matching existing records

A source key is how HDL decides whether you are CREATING or UPDATING. You supply an identifier from the source system; the loader keeps a cross-reference between it and the Fusion record it created, and a later load carrying the same key updates that record rather than making another. That is what makes HDL re-runnable, and it is the single most useful property of the loader: correct the file, load again, converge. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE KEY YOU CHOSE IS NOT AS UNIQUE AS YOU BELIEVED is the failure worth fearing. Two people share an employee number because the legacy system reused it after a leaver. The second load does not create a second person; it UPDATES the first one — overwriting a real employee's details with somebody else's, at a date, as a new version. Nothing fails. The count is one short and everything looks loaded. So test the…

In this module: Module 8 · HDL for HCM data

1. 1Why HCM has its own loader
2. 2The .dat file format
3. 3Business objects and their dependencies
4. 4Effective dates: the part that catches everyone
5. 5Source keys and matching existing records
6. 6Loading, monitoring and the error report
7. 7Corrections and the delete you cannot do
8. 8HDL versus HSDL, and when to use each
9. 9What breaks: four HCM load failures
10. 10Lab briefing · Load a workforce, then correct it