Hi,
Good questions, let me try to answer them a little more broadly for anyone having similar questions about QKBs.
Q: How can I tell what new functionality is available in a particular release of a QKB?
A: To compare two QKB releases to determine what new functionality was added, I would suggest looking at the release notes for the particular QKB. The release notes of each QKB highlight the new features / functionality available since the last release including any definitions have been removed or deprecated. Since the effects are cumulative, upgrading to the most recent release of a QKB will always get you functionalilty that was made available in earlier releases as well.
Q: What are the benefits of upgrading a QKB?
A: Each release of the QKB delivers new or improved QKB functionality. Examples of these kinds of improvements are:
- New or updated definitions
- Adding support for new locales
Definitions are rules that perform various tasks associated with data quality such as parsing of names, gender identification, or generation of matchcodes which are used to determine whether two records are the same. Examples of the benefits of new or updated definitions are better parsing, better matching, performance improvements, etc.
Locales are geography-specific and language-specific applications of definitions. For example, determining how to standardize a name is different with the English, Great Britain locale than with the English, United States locale. By adding locales, data quality rules can be applied to information in a manner best suited for the language and country that is needed.
Q: How should I upgrade to a new release of a QKB?
A: Install new QKB into a clean directory. Check the release notes to see what definitions have been deprecated/removed. If you are not using any definitions that have been deprecated or removed, you can simply update your data jobs to use the new definition names. Make a reference to the new QKB in the Admin tab in DM Studio, and make that reference the new “Active” QKB. Run a test of each data job to ensure that the job runs as expected with the new QKB.
The README for each release contains additional, platform-specific information as well as details about merging definitions between an existing QKB and a new one as well.
Q: Where can I access the latest releases of a QKB?
A: These are available for download at:
http://support.sas.com/demosdownloads/setupcat.jsp?cat=DataFlux+QKBs
Q: Where are the release notes for QKBs?
A: These are available for download at:
http://support.sas.com/documentation/onlinedoc/dfqkb/index.html
I hope this information helps!
Mike F.
