Data sources contain the identities that you want to process for entity resolution and load into the entity database. Data sources contain identifying data (unique, personal identifiers for an identity) and non-identifying data (other attributes and data points for an identity). The identity records in the data source must be exported as Universal Message Format (UMF) before they can be processed by the system or loaded into the entity database. Examples of data sources include, but are not limited to, employee lists, watch lists, customer lists, and vendor lists.
Data sources contain vital information, such as the information about the original source (because the original data was transformed into UMF) or the external reference for the data source. These details make each data source unique in the system.
During entity resolution, if two entities are unresolved, the system uses the data source information to determine which information belongs with which entity.
You can organize incoming data sources by creating source locations and source systems and associating them with your data sources. You can use source locations and source systems to distinguish among similar types of data sources.
For example, if you are processing reservation data and human resource data from more than one location, you can use a data source location to distinguish which location is contributing the data: