Merge key
ARIS Process Mining allows you to flexibly change the merge key if you already have data in your source table. However, this should only be necessary in rare cases. We recommend that you choose the merge key wisely right when you create the source table. It works best if it is a real primary key of the table.
In general, the merge key of a source table is used in two ways.
First, the merge key is used to merge data of incoming rows with the existing rows of the source table. If the value of the all merge key columns is the same in both the existing and the incoming row, the existing row is replaced with the incoming row.
If an incoming row does not have a value in a particular merge key column (value is NULL), this row can only match existing rows that also do not have a value in the same column.
Second, the merge key is used to remove duplicates in the incoming data. We assume that within the incoming data the merge key really is a key, that is, there must not be two rows with same merge key. If that is not the case ARIS Process Mining silently removes all duplicates, so that only one row remains. There is no guarantee as to which of the duplicate rows will remain.
If a merge key is reconfigured this does not imply any changes to the existing data of the source table. If there are two rows with same new merge key in the source table, they will both stay in table and keep their values. Incoming data with the same merge key values will update both existing rows.