One of the primary methods to bring data into the Informatica MDM Hub from source systems is through the land, stage, and load processes. During the stage process, the data can be modified by data standardization routines, such as routines that remove erroneous characters, and other data quality procedures. This process is referred to as data cleansing.

Cleanse maps define the rules for how to move data from landing tables to staging tables. These maps are based on one landing table and one staging table. Each field in the landing table can be directly mapped to a field in the staging table or the field can be modified by mapping it through one or more cleanse functions before mapping it to the staging table field. A typical cleanse routine found on a cleanse map might remove excess spaces (trim) from the data, or change all of the characters in a string field to uppercase.

These maps are also called stage maps and are executed using a batch process by running the stage job associated with the specific staging table used by the map. The maps can also be called in real-time through calls to the SIF API.

The cleanse maps defined in the MDM Hub sample Operational Reference Store are classified based on the following systems:

Legacy
SFA
Lookup
Product
ODI

Some cleanse maps are simple while others are complex, using multiple custom cleanse functions.

The following image shows the sample of a simple cleanse map:

The following image shows the sample of a complex cleanse map:

A sample of the custom cleanse functions used on the cleanse maps is defined in the section "Cleanse Functions."