Repeatable output

Configure repeatable output if you have the same value in multiple source tables and you want to return the masked value in all of the target tables. The tables in the target database receive consistent masked values.

For example, customer John Smith has two account numbers, 1234 and 5678, and the account numbers are in multiple tables. The masking task always masks the name John Smith as Frank Martinez, the account number 1234 as 6549, and the account number 5678 as 3214 in all the tables.

Enter a seed value when you configure repeatable output. You can configure a dictionary file with data values that you can replace when you use substitution masking. When you configure repeatable output, the masking task returns the same value from the dictionary whenever a specific value appears in the source data.

You can define a seed value from 1 through 999. The default seed value is 190. Apply the same seed value to a field to return the same masked data values in different source data. For example, if you have the same Cust_ID field in four tables and you want all of them to generate the output with the same masked values, apply the same seed value when you mask each field.

You can enter the seed value as a parameter. Seed value parameter names must begin with $$. You can include an underscore (_) in the name but you cannot include other special characters. Add the required parameter and value to the parameter file and specify the parameter file name at run time.

You cannot use a seed value for random and custom masking rules if the source data type is numeric.

If you perform substitution masking or custom substitution masking, you can choose to optimize the dictionary usage. The workflow uses some values from the selected dictionary to mask source data. These dictionary values might be used for multiple entries so that all source data is masked in the target. The chances of using duplicate dictionary values reduces if you optimize dictionary usage. To optimize dictionary output, you must configure the masking rule for repeatable output.

Unique substitution masking ensures that each unique source value uses a unique dictionary value.

To mask a source value with a unique dictionary value, you can configure unique substitution masking. If a source value is masked with a specific dictionary value, then no other source value is masked with this dictionary value.

For example, the Name column in the source data contains multiple entries of John. If you configure repeatable masking, every entry of John takes the same dictionary value, such as Xyza. However, other source values might also be masked with the same dictionary value. A source entry Jack can also use the dictionary value Xyza. As a result, all entries of John and Jack use the same dictionary value. When you configure unique substitution masking, if all source values of John use the Xyza dictionary value, then no other source value uses the same dictionary value.

Unique substitution masking requires a storage connection for the storage tables. Storage tables contain the source to dictionary value mapping information required for unique substitution masking.