Approaches to reference data management

There are several general approaches to the management of reference data:

1. Represent the code values as attributes of a Business Asset.
2. Use relations between Code Value assets and Business Terms.

Approach 1: Code values as attributes of Business Assets

Prerequisites

• You have created a new asset type to use as the reference point for information about the code value. This is typically a child asset type of Business Asset or Business Term.
• You have created or imported assets of your new asset type for all code values.
• You have created a custom attribute type for each code set, for example, ISO-2-digit, ISO-3-digit, and ISO Numeric.
• You have assigned the custom attribute types to the new asset type.

Approach

For each of the assets that represent a code value, enter the code values in the relevant attribute.

Advantages

This approach provides a simple overview of all code values on the asset page, which can suffice if the following conditions are met:

• The code sets are very stable.
• You will not add new code sets.
• The code values don't need to be traced to other assets.
• You don't want to reuse the codes for other assets.

Disadvantages and limitations

This approach doesn't allow for traceability:

• You can't see that the 2-digit country code is a value from a code set, or a column in a database.
• You can't easily see for which other assets each 2-digit country code is used.
• You can't link the 2-digit country codes to 3-digit country codes. As a consequence, you also can't represent transformation logic.
• Each code set requires a different attribute type.
• The code sets are hard to maintain, especially if the code values are updated, for example, an existing value is changed or a new code value is added.

Approach 2: Code values as assets with a relation to Business Terms

Prerequisites

• You have created Business Term assets for all code values.
• You have imported all Code Value assets, for example, ISO-2-digit, ISO-3-digit, and ISO Numeric data.
• You have created a Code Set asset for each code set.
• You have created relations of the type "Code Value is part of / contains Code Set" between Code Value assets and Code Set assets.

Approach

For each of the Business Term assets, you can create a relation of the type "Business Term has code / is code for Code Value" to the equivalent Code Value assets.

Advantages

• You don't have to make any changes to the asset types or attribute types.
• Each code value is an asset in itself, so you can manage it accordingly. For example, you can assign responsibilities and approve the Code Value assets with workflows.
• You can link each Code Value asset to multiple Business Assets.
• You can create new Code Values assets when required, without having to create or edit attribute types.
• You can use traceability diagrams to visualize the links between Business Assets and Code Value assets.

Disadvantages and limitations

• You need to create Business Assets for all code values.
• If you also need relations between the equivalent Code Value assets, you need a lot of relations.