Change request management overview

The MDM Application Toolkit includes a set of components that process requests by users to change master data. These components are referred to as change request management components.

You can use the change request management components to create an end-to-end solution to implement a review and approve, or reject, step within your change management systems. You need to:

Create a service.
Add the service to the beginning of the Change Request Management business process definition (BPD).
Decide how you want to initiate the BPD to allow users to access the BPD. You can either use the standard IBM® BPM methods to expose the BPD, or you can use the IBM BPM JavaScript API to programmatically expose the BPD.

The change request management components are available for you to extend and customize within your own processes and services. The change request management components are designed to work with any object types that your environment needs to manage. However, currently the functionality assumes that you are updating objects to an MDM operational server. Extending the components to update objects elsewhere is not described in this documentation.

Interactions between the Change Request components

The Change Request Management BPD is started with a ChangeRequest business object. Starting the BPD creates a Display Changes task. The task is assigned to the Data Steward team. The ChangeRequest business object contains the full original record and a list of ChangeRecord business objects. Each ChangeRecord business object contains a single change to the original record.

ChangeRequest business object

The ChangeRequest business object has four parameters: originalObject, changes. comment, and requestUser.

In the following example, the originalObject parameter contains a TCRMPersonBObj object type. The changes parameter contains a list of ChangeRecord business objects.

<ChangeRequest>
    <originalObject type="TCRMPersonBObj"> 
        <PartyId>123456789098765432</PartyId>
        <PreferredLanguageValue>English</PreferredLanguageValue>
        <BirthDate>1974-05-18 00:00:00.0</BirthDate>
        <GenderType>F</GenderType>
        <CitizenshipValue>United States of America</CitizenshipValue>
        <MaritalStatusValue>Single</MaritalStatusValue>
        <TCRMPartyAddressBObj type="TCRMPartyAddressBObj[]">
            <item>
                <PartyAddressIdPK>098765432123456789</PartyAddressIdPK>
                <AddressUsageValue>Primary Residence</AddressUsageValue>
                <TCRMAddressBObj type="TCRMAddressBObj">
                    <AddressIdPK>246809753124680975</AddressIdPK>
                    <AddressLineOne>1 Avenue Road</AddressLineOne>
                    <City>Boston</City>
                    <ZipPostalCode>12345</ZipPostalCode>
                    <ProvinceStateValue>MA</ProvinceStateValue>
                    <CountryValue>United States of America</CountryValue>
                </TCRMAddressBObj>
            </item>
        </TCRMPartyAddressBObj>
        <TCRMPersonNameBObj type="TCRMPersonNameBObj[]">
            <item>
                <PersonNameIdPK>567890123456789012</PersonNameIdPK>
                <NameUsageValue>Legal</NameUsageValue>
                <PrefixValue>Miss</PrefixValue>
                <GivenNameOne>Patricia</GivenNameOne>
                <LastName>Harris</LastName>
            </item>
        </TCRMPersonNameBObj>
    </originalObject>
    <changes type="ChangeRecord[]">
        <item>
            <path>MaritalStatusValue</path>
            <value>Married</value>
        </item>
        <item>
            <path>TCRMPartyAddressBObj[0].TCRMAddressBObj.AddressLineOne</path>
            <value>100 Boston Road</value>
        </item>
        <item>
            <path>TCRMPartyAddressBObj[0].TCRMAddressBObj.ZipPostalCode</path>
            <value>67890</value>
        </item>
        <item>
            <path>TCRMPersonNameBObj[0].LastName</path>
            <value>Li</value>
        </item>
    </changes>
    <comment>Patty Harris has recently married. I have updated her surname, address and 
    marital status accordingly.</comment>
</ChangeRequest>

Updated change request business object

When a data steward claims the generated task, the ChangeRequest business object is passed to the MDM Change Request Approval human service. The human service verifies that the change request exists and then uses the MDM Change Request coach view to present the changes to the data steward for review.

The data steward then has the choice of accepting or rejecting the changes. If the data steward accepts the changes, the human service renders an updated object by using the full original object. The human service applies the changes from the ChangeRecords business object to the updated object. Additionally, mandatory fields are included in the updated object. For example:

<TCRMPersonBObj>
    <PartyId>123456789098765432</PartyId>
    <PreferredLanguageValue>English</PreferredLanguageValue>
    <BirthDate>1974-05-18 00:00:00.0</BirthDate>
    <GenderType>F</GenderType>
    <CitizenshipValue>United States of America</CitizenshipValue>
    <MaritalStatusValue>Married</MaritalStatusValue>
    <TCRMPartyAddressBObj type="TCRMPartyAddressBObj[]">
        <item>
            <PartyAddressIdPK>098765432123456789</PartyAddressIdPK>
            <AddressUsageValue>Primary Residence</AddressUsageValue>
            <TCRMAddressBObj type="TCRMAddressBObj">
                <AddressIdPK>246809753124680975</AddressIdPK>
                <AddressLineOne>100 Boston Road</AddressLineOne>
                <City>Boston</City>
                <ZipPostalCode>67890</ZipPostalCode>
                <ProvinceStateValue>MA</ProvinceStateValue>
                <CountryValue>United States of America</CountryValue>
            </TCRMAddressBObj>
        </item>
    </TCRMPartyAddressBObj>
    <TCRMPersonNameBObj type="TCRMPersonNameBObj[]">
        <item>
            <PersonNameIdPK>567890123456789012</PersonNameIdPK>
            <NameUsageValue>Legal</NameUsageValue>
            <PrefixValue>Miss</PrefixValue>
            <GivenNameOne>Patricia</GivenNameOne>
            <LastName>Li</LastName>
        </item>
    </TCRMPersonNameBObj>
</TCRMPersonBObj>

MDM operational server updates

The ChangeRecord business object is then sent to the MDM operational server by using the MDM Update integration service. If the update is successful, the data steward is notified and the task is completed. If the update is unsuccessful, the data steward is provided with the error data and the Review Change Request window appears. Using this window the data steward can try to accept the changes again, for example if the error is transient, or to reject the change request.

If a data steward rejects a change request, then the task is terminated and the ChangeRequest business object is discarded. The data steward might reject a task because an error occurred or because they disagree with the changes.

Note: If the data steward reviews a change request and does not immediately accept or reject it, the data steward can navigate away from the task and continue the task later. The task remains in their Work inbox until the data steward is ready to decide which action to take on the change request.

Component descriptions

The following table describes the type and purpose of the change request management components:

Table 1. MDM Application Toolkit components used for change request management
Component type	Component name	Description
Ajax service	Physical Party Change Request Localization Ajax service	A service that retrieves localization data for the Change Request business process definition. This service is used only for Physical MDM and the Party domain.
Business object	ChangeRecord	A complex data type that specifies the field that needs to be changed.
Business object	ChangeRequest	A complex data type that contains the original record and all of the proposed changes to the record.
Business process definition	Change Request Management	Provides a process by which a data steward can receive and review a change request and then approve or reject that request.
Coach view	MDM Change Request	A user interface window that displays the attributes that are part of the change request.
Human service	MDM Change Request Approval	Verifies that there are changes to process, displays the list of changes in a coach view. The coach view includes an option to approve or reject the changes.
Resource bundle group	MDMCRM_Resource	A file that contains values for the text on user interface windows, including help text. This file is used to customize and localize the text.

Last updated: 8 Sep 2015