You can define the data change events or versions of business entities and their relationships based on their effective periods. Data changes occur over time and are independent of their relationship to other data. The changes to data result in new effective periods or updates to an existing or a future effective period. Use timeline management to track the changes to effective periods of data.

To manage data events of business entities, such as customer address, phone number, and their relationships, you can enable the timeline. To maintain the effective periods for base object records, the

MDM Hub

uses cross-reference tables that are associated with the base objects for which you enabled the timeline.

You enable the timeline for base objects when you configure base object properties in the

Hub Console

. When you enable the timeline, the

MDM Hub

tracks past, present, and future changes to data, such as the address of a customer.

Timeline is enabled by default for hierarchy management relationship base objects.

Base objects for which you enable the timeline contain a version of data that pertains to the effective period that you specify. The base objects might not reflect the current values. The version of data in base objects at any point in time depends on the contributing cross-reference tables that might change with time. You can use SIF API calls to get records for the current effective date. Additionally, you can pass any effective date to retrieve the data for the effective date that you specify.

When an incoming change affects the current effective period of the base object, the

MDM Hub

uses the current trust settings to recalculate BVT. Then the

MDM Hub

updates the base object record.