Best Practices Workflow for Master Data Management

August 2010 8
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In this chapter, the various workflow tools are used to implement an MDM benchmark use case. Here,
we refer to the creation of master data. Goal is to give you a rough idea about how this process can be
implemented within the constraints of your respective environment. We will clarify for each workflow
tool if and how the several workflow steps can be realized, where we face limitations, and where we
interact with other tools. The here gained findings should be easily applicable to other use cases such
as update master data, matching & merging, or data enrichment, etc.
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In the following, we use UML notation (Unified Modeling Language) to describe our process.
The figures below show the use case diagrams. The central use case that we refer to is 'Create'. t
always includes the use cases 'Search' and 'Approval'. The other uses cases 'Validation',
'Assignment', and 'Rollback' are optional, hence the extended connection between the activities. For
the 'Approval' use case, usually a 'Matching' step is applied to find duplicates. Each matching requires
a 'Validation' to run beforehand to ensure that the data is complete. Optionally, the requester can
'Search' and 'Compare' the data to make a decision.

Requester
Create Master Data
Search
Approval
Validation
Assignment
include
include
extend
extend
Roll back
extend


Best Practices Workflow for Master Data Management
August 2010 9
MD Manager
Approval
Search
Matching
Compare
extend
extend
include
Validation
include


In the activity diagram below, we distinguish between two roles, the requester and a master data
manager who has to provide approval. The business process starts with the requester searching for
an existing master data record. If the record is available, the workflow branches to the final state of the
process. In case of missing master data, the requester will create a new record. After having entered
the new record, it might run through assignments to update empty fields, and through validation rules.
In case of validation violation, the record is pushed back to the requester who has to update the same.
Once the data record passes the validation, it is forwarded to the MD manager's work list for approval.
The approver can either run a matching strategy or a search and comparison to ensure that no
duplicates exist. After having reviewed the data, and also taking into account the results of the
duplicate check, the approver can make following decisions: data needs to be modified, data creation
is approved, or data creation is rejected. Depending on the decision, the data is either posted or a
rollback is done. Finally, the requester is notified about the decision made.

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All activities in figure below are given a footnote which is used to refer to the same in
following chapters

Best Practices Workflow for Master Data Management
August 2010 10
UI - Requester UI MD Manager
Create
2
Search data
1
Approve
10
Rollback
11
Assignment
3
Match
9
Post data
12
no
yes
Search
7
no hit hit
Validation
4
true
false
Needs to be modified
Notify requester
13
Update
5
Display Worklist
6
Compare
8