A simple strategy analyzes all the values of a port in a record group and selects one value. You specify a simple strategy for each port. The Consolidation transformation uses the port values selected by all simple strategies to create a consolidated record. Examples of simple strategies include the most frequent value in a port, the longest value in a port, or the most frequent non-blank value in a port.

A row-based strategy analyzes rows in the record group and selects one row. The Consolidation transformation uses the port values from that row to create a consolidated record. Examples of row-based strategies include the highest character count, the lowest number of blank fields, or the highest count of the most frequent fields.

An advanced strategy analyzes a record group using strategies that you define. You build advanced strategies by using consolidation functions in an expression. The Consolidation transformation creates a consolidated record based on the output of the expression. The expression that you create can also use all of the functions available in the Decision transformation.