Determining Whether to Reconcile Data

In ACR/Detail, you can specify that the first file processed is the driver file. The system determines whether the keys from the driver file are present in the second file. If the keys from the first file are also present in the second file, the system processes only those keys. Keys in the second file that are not in the driver file are ignored.

Problem

You need to reconcile two input sources using a 24-byte key, but only for accounts that reside in both input sources. The account number is in the first eight bytes of the key. Because you are matching only a portion of the key, the system cannot use the driver file feature to select the appropriate keys from the second file.

Solution

Set up two numeric internal items to indicate which files contain the values. When you extract the value from the file, set the item that indicates the original input source for this value to +1.

Next, create reconciliation rules to look for non-zero values for both sources. If both values are non-zero, the account is present in both sources. The extracted values are passed via filter to the next level, which applies the true business rules that use the required 24-byte key.

Complete the steps below to reconcile the two input sources with a 24-byte key.

1 ) Create a base job that extracts the full 24-byte key but reconcile the job as a base level job with an 8-byte key.

2 ) Set the filter for a qualifier to ON, so that only the items that you note as out-of-balance are passed to a qualifier.

See the “Setting Up Multi-Level Reconciliation” section in the ACR/Detail User Guide.

3 ) For the first input source, define an internal item that contains a tally to indicate whether the value is found in the first input source.

4 ) For the second input source, define an additional internal item with a separate tally to indicate whether the value is found in the second input source.

5 ) Create three reconciliation rules :

- Create a standard rule to check the first input source internal item for a value greater than zero.
- Create another standard rule to check the second input source internal item for a value greater than zero.
- Create a conditional rule to check that both of the standard rules are true. If true, set a return code to flag which keys go to the RLQ.

6 ) Set up a qualifier job. This job has the same job/step name as the base job but has a value other than spaces in the qualifier field.

7 ) For the qualifier job, go into the reconciliation level and specify that the job uses the data filter from the base job, which you set up in step 1, with the return code range appropriate for the value that you set up in step 5c.

You can now reconcile with a 24-byte key because your qualifier job has only the data with matching accounts from both files, and all 24 bytes are available.