Data Quality

Syndication is the process of exporting Production data to a particular syndication target.

Syndication targets are users of the data, such as web pages, servers that process product orders, or subsidiary businesses.

A Syndication Channel is a data stream consisting of a set of data being transmitted (or made available to) a particular syndication target.

Channel Readiness is a measure of how ready a channel is to be syndicated to its target, that is to say, how many of the required record attribute values have reached a validation level sufficient to be syndicated to their target.

Channel readiness is determined through the process of Record Validation according to predetermined validation levels and validation rules.

An organization may have different validation requirements for different syndication targets. For example, the server that processes orders may have minimal requirements, while the website requires that each item includes more data, such as marketing data and images.

The use of validation levels allows an organization to specify that a record is valid for one syndication target but not valid for another. Validation requirements are cumulative as levels are ascended, meaning that records that pass a validation level must have passed lower validation levels as well. See Record Validation for more information regarding validation levels and the process of record validation.

Records are eligible for promotion to Production once they have reached their assigned validation level. Once promoted, they will only be available for syndication to those targets which they are ready for (have achieved a validation level high enough for). Note that since validation levels are cumulative, records that are available for syndication to one target will also be available for syndication to all targets that have the same or lesser validation level requirements.

For example, an organization might name their lowest validation level (the level with least requirements) "Mainframe", indicating that records that pass the Mainframe level of validation are ready to be syndicated to the mainframe that processes product orders. The organization may also define a higher validation level named "Web" that requires a record not only to pass Mainframe validation, but also to contain other specified, validated data before it is available for syndication to the web.

Records assigned to the Mainframe level will be eligible for promotion to Production as long as their data quality is sufficient to achieve the Mainframe validation level. The records will not be available for syndication to the web unless they are assigned to Web Level and also pass Web level validation. Note that in order for a record to pass Web level validation, it must also have passed Mainframe validation, thus they would be eligible for syndication to both targets.