Built into the pipelines is a dynamic search and query
interface, that provides a single-point-of-access for Web services
to query the entity database. You use UMF input documents to structure
the request, and then send the UMF input document through Web services
to the pipelines for processing. Once processed, the pipeline returns
a UMF output document that contains the results.
Web services pipeline searches provide answers to two
types of questions:
- Which entities in the entity database match to a particular attribute
or set of attributes? (UMF_SEARCH)
- This type of Web services pipeline search takes full advantage
of entity resolution to recognize and standardize the incoming search
criteria, and then to match the search criteria to entities in the
database. It is called a summary or result set query, and it returns
a list of entities with data values that match to the requested attribute
value or list of attribute values.
- To perform a summary or result set query, you create a UMF_SEARCH
input document that contains the search criteria that the pipeline
uses to perform entity resolution. The pipeline responds by returning
a UMF_SEARCH_RESULT output document with the query results, which
are the list of entities that matched the search criteria.
- What does the entity database know about a specific entity? (UMF_QUERY)
- This type of Web services pipeline search uses SQL statements
and parameters to query the entity database. It is called a detail
or drill-down query, and it returns a detailed list of the information
about a single entity.
- To perform a detail or drill-down query, you create a UMF_QUERY
input document that indicates which entity in the entity database
you want information about. The pipeline responds by returning a UMF_QUERY_RESULT
output document with the detail about the requested entity.
While performing Web service pipeline searches,
the pipelines perform all standard pipeline functions, including logging.
Both
the input (request) and the output (response) for Web services pipeline
searches use UMF documents and structure the information in UMF.
Web service pipeline search formats
The
product comes with several built-in formats for each
of the Web services pipeline searches:
- UMF_SEARCH formats
- WS_SUMMARY_TOP10
- Returns a list of the top 10 entities in the database that most
closely matched the attribute data specified in the search criteria
- WS_SUMMARY_TOP100
- Returns a list of the top 100 entities in the database that most
closely matched the attribute data specified in the search criteria
- WS_SUMMARY
- Returns a list of all entities in the database that matched the
attribute data specified in the search criteria
- UMF_QUERY formats
- WS_DETAIL
- Returns all data from entity database for the requested entity
ID
- WS_RELATION
- Returns a list of all entities in the entity database that are
related to the input entity at 1-degree
- WS_ALERT
- Returns a list of all alerts in the entity database that involve
the input entity ID
You indicate which built-in format to use in
the FORMAT_CODE tag in the appropriate UMF input document.
Performance considerations
Web services
pipeline search requests that contain more search criteria typically
mean the system compares against fewer entities in the database. That,
in turn, means that the system returns results quicker than requests
with fewer search criteria.