Options - dataflow_designer - spectrum_quality_1 - 23.1

Specifies the field to use to create groups of records to filter. The Filter stage will retain one or more records from each group, depending on how you configure the stage. In cases where you have used a matching stage earlier in the dataflow, such as Interflow Match, Intraflow Match, or Transactional Match, you should select the CollectionNumber field to use the collections created by the matching stage as the groups. However, if you want to group records by some other field, choose the field here. For example, if you want to filter out all but one record from records that have the same value in the AccountNumber field, you would select AccountNumber.

If you specify a field in the Group by field, check this box to sort the records by the value in the field you chose. This option is enabled by default.

Click this button to specify sort performance options. By default, the sort performance options specified in Management Console, which are the default performance options for your system, are in effect. If you want to override your system's default performance options, check the Override sort performance options box then specify the values you want in these fields:

In memory record limit

Specifies the maximum number of data rows a sorter will hold in memory before it starts paging to disk. By default, a sort of 10,000 records or less will be done in memory and a sort of more than 10,000 records will be performed as a disk sort. The maximum limit is 100,000 records. Typically an in-memory sort is much faster than a disk sort, so this value should be set high enough so that most of the sorts will be in-memory sorts and only large sets will be written to disk.

Note: Be careful in environments where there are jobs running concurrently because increasing the In memory record limit setting increases the likelihood of running out of memory.

Maximum number of temporary files

Specifies the maximum number of temporary files that may be used by a sort process. Using a larger number of temporary files can result in better performance. However, the optimal number is highly dependent on the configuration of the server running Spectrum Technology Platform. You should experiment with different settings, observing the effect on performance of using more or fewer temporary files. To calculate the approximate number of temporary files that may be needed, use this equation:

(NumberOfRecords × 2) ÷ InMemoryRecordLimit = NumberOfTempFilesN

Note: The maximum number of temporary files cannot be more than 1,000.

Specifies the maximum number of records that are returned from each group. If you set this option to 1, you can define filter rules to determine which record in each group should be returned. If no rules are defined, the first record in each collection is returned and the rest are discarded. In this mode, the filter rules define which record will be retained.

For example, if you define a rule where the record with the highest match score in a group is retained, and you set this option to 1, then the record with the highest match score in each group will survive and the other records in the group will be discarded.

If you set this option to a value higher than one, you cannot specify filter rules.

Specifies the name of the dataflow field whose value you want to evaluate to determine whether to filter the record.

Specifies the type of data in the field. One of the following:

Non-Numeric

Choose this option if the field contains non-numeric data (for example, string data).

Numeric

Choose this option if the field contains numeric data (for example, double, float, and so on).

Specifies the type of comparison you want to use to evaluate the field. One of the following:

Contains

Determines if the field contains the value specified. For example, "sailboat" contains the value "boat".

Equal

Determines if the field contains the exact value specified.

Greater Than

Determines if the field value is greater than the value specified. This operation only works on numeric fields.

Greater Than Or Equal To

Determines if the field value is greater than or equal to the value specified. This operation only works on numeric fields.

Highest

Compares the field's value for all the records group and determines which record has the highest value in the field. For example, if the fields in the group contain values of 10, 20, 30, and 100, the record with the field value 100 would be selected. This operation only works on numeric fields. If multiple records are tied for the longest value, one record is selected.

Is Empty

Determines if the field contains no value.

Is Not Empty

Determines if the field contains any value.

Less Than

Determines if the field value is less than the value specified. This operation only works on numeric fields.

Less Than Or Equal To

Determines if the field value is less than or equal to the value specified. This operation only works on numeric fields.

Longest

Compares the field's value for all the records group and determines which record has the longest (in bytes) value in the field. For example, if the group contains the values "Mike" and "Michael", the record with the value "Michael" would be selected. If multiple records are tied for the longest value, one record is selected.

Lowest

Compares the field's value for all the records group and determines which record has the lowest value in the field. For example, if the fields in the group contain values of 10, 20, 30, and 100, the record with the field value 10 would be selected. This operation only works on numeric fields. If multiple records are tied for the longest value, one record is selected.

Most Common

Determines if the field value contains the value that occurs most frequently in this field among the records in the group. If two or more values are most common, no action is taken.

Not Equal

Determines if the field value is not the same as the value specified.

Specifies the type of value you want to compare to the field's value. One of the following:

Field

Choose this option if you want to compare another dataflow field's value to the field.

String

Choose this option if you want to compare the field to a specific value.