Autocuration and Partial Matching
How inventoried products are matched with the Catalog.
In cases where we don’t have an exact match, partial matching and autocuration will be used to attempt to create valid matches.
The order of precedence for attempts is:
Exact Match
Exact match for non edition based products:
source V & T & Version = catalog V & T & Version
Exact match for edition based products:
source V & T & Version & Edition = catalog V & T & Version & Edition
Full Match
Full match for non edition based products:
source V & T & Version = catalog match rule l.h.s. V & T & Version
Exact match for edition based products:
source V & T & Version & Edition = catalog match rule l.h.s. V & T & Version & Edition
Autocuration
Source must have number of version parts>= matching catalog entry.
When exact and full match fail, we attempt auto curation. This involves add a new version to the catalog for a specific Vendor and Title where one didn't exist before. Before doing this, we need to be confident that the version we are about to create is a valid version.
Once the new versions is added, a match is returned between the source VTVCE and the new catalog VTVCE record
The following rules must be adhered to before autocurating an entry:
The source VT matches with a catalog VT either directly (exact) or via a match rule
e.g. Source Vendor = 'Microsoft' and Source Title 'Microsoft Visio'
there should be at least one match rule that matches the source VT to catalog VT
The source version doesn’t contain any letters or special characters (e.g. ‘/’ or ‘-‘)
If there is already an entry in the catalog with the same version major.minor, then the source major.minor must have equal or greater than number of version parts than the catalog version
This is to have confidence that the version we are about to add to catalog is an accurate version rather than missing some version parts
If there is no existing major.minor in the catalog, then autocuration can occur i.e. new major.minor can be created
For edition based product
The match rule being used for autocuration must be on the edition rather than the version
Partial Match
Source version must be same major.minor as catalog match.
If autocuration hasn't taken place, then Partial Matching is attempted. For partial matching to occur, the source version should have less than the number of version parts of the major.minor of the catalog.
Note: if it has the same or greater number of version parts then it would have autocurated
So, for example, if the catalog has version 3.2.1.1 for a specific VT and the source version was 3.2 then partial matching can take place. In partial matching, the lowest version for that catalog major.minor is returned.
Glossary
Edition based product is defined as a product that has at least one edition for a specific major version
Number of Version parts: how many different parts of the version number there are – e.g. 1.2.3 , number of version parts is 3
Exact match is when source VTV matches exactly a catalog VTV. If its an edition based product then it’s the source VTVE matches exactly catalog VTVE
Full match is when the source VTV does not match a catalog VTV directly, but matches the source VTV via a match rule. If its an edition based product that the source VTV or VTVE matches a catalog VTVE via a match rule
l.h.s: left hand side of match rule , i.e. the source VTVCE of the match rule
VTVCE - Vendor, Title, Version, Colloquial version, Edition
VT - Vendor and Title only
Partial Match - the source Vendor and Title match the Catalog Vendor and Title
Partial Version Match - the conditions are fulfilled (see below) whereby the lowest version number for a speciific major.minor is returned as a match