Attributes are characteristics or traits that describe a person,
organization, place, or item. Common attributes include information such as
names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, tax identification numbers,
and license numbers.
The system supports the following kinds of attributes:
- Names
- Name attributes define the name of the person, organization, place or
item, as defined by the entity model and the incoming identity. Name attributes
typically represent persons and businesses, but they can extend to the names
of vehicles (such as cars, trucks, ships, or planes), groups, or any other
type of entity that your business defines in its entity model.
- Addresses
- Address attributes define a location of the identity and typically contain
standard address information: street name and number, unit or building number,
city, state, country, and postal code.
- Numbers
- Number attributes are comprised of data that is usually described as a
number, such as credit card numbers, phone numbers, and passport numbers.
Numbers are not limited to numeric characters only though, because many numbers
use alphanumeric characters.
- Characteristics
- Characteristic attributes define other identity traits or information
that is not expressed through the other kinds of attributes. You can use characteristic
attributes to customize the system to define identity characteristics that
you want to use for resolving entities or detecting relationships. Common
types of characteristics include dates of birth and gender.
- E-mails
- E-mail attributes define Internet e-mail addresses. E-mail addresses tend
to be unique; some studies have suggested that people who tend to use more
than one name still tend to use the same one or two e-mail addresses.
In Universal Message Format (UMF), the various kinds of
attributes are expressed in UMF segments. Each kind of attribute is its own
UMF segment.