When you need to clean up data
Oftentimes, the data you are using is out of sync with the data that is currently being used. This happens for a number of reasons. The primary reason is lack of maintenance, mostly due to the amount of effort involved.
If you have quite a bit of aged, out of date data, use the following technique to "freshen it up".
Create a task whoseImport Type isUpdate. Run the data from the source into the current database, based on Unique Key Fields.
Example: Human Resources
In this example, we have a human resource database with name, address, city, state and zip, along with other information such as special courses taken, manager's name, job title, etc. The database has not been updated for address in over one year. The company has over 2,000 employees, so it is a difficult manual process.
Solution: Attach to the payroll system via ODBC or ASCII intermediate file, selecting only the fields name, address, city, state and zip. Run an "Update" task to refresh each employee based on the employee ID. All the names whose addresses have changed will be synchronized with the current payroll system.
Note: Make sure you do not overwrite fields that are more current on the Destination database. The Sentinel has no way of knowing this.