Remediating potential overlay issues in IBM Match 360

Last updated: May 30, 2025

Review and evaluate potential record overlays in your master data. Review and either apply or discard incoming changes to unlock a record that has been flagged as having a potential overlay issue.

A potential overlay issue occurs when a record update results in changes that appear to alter the identity of the record, such as a substantially different name, date of birth, or identification number. This type of change can potentially indicate that the record was erroneously overwritten with data from another record, and could improperly alter entity information.

When a record gets updated, IBM Match 360 automatically compares the updated demographic data with its current value. If key data elements such as name, phone number, gender, or personal identification numbers are very different, the system flags that record as having a potential overlay issue. Records with potential overlays are immediately locked and cannot be updated, deleted, or moved between entities until a data steward has reviewed the updates to clear the issue.

When a potential overlay issue is identified, IBM Match 360 creates a potential overlay task for a data steward to remediate. You can review potential overlay tasks from your task inbox.

Before you begin

Before you can begin reviewing and remediating potential overlay issues, a data engineer user must have configured and activated the potential overlay workflow for this service instance. For more information, see Configuring a potential overlay workflow.

Searching for records with potential overlay issues

Within the IBM Match 360 master data workspace, you can search for records that have potential overlay issues.

When you run a search for records, click the filter icon and select Potential overlay. When selected, this filter ensures that the search only returns records that are locked due to a current potential overlay issue.

You can access a potential overlay remediation task directly from the search results screen. For any record row that has an overlay, open the action menu and select View task.

For more information about searching for records within the workspace, see Exploring master data entities and records in IBM Match 360.

Completing tasks to remediate potential overlays

As a data steward user, when you have potential overlay issues in your task inbox, you can claim them and then review them to clear the issue and unlock the affected record.

To remediate potential overlay issues:

From the Cloud Pak for Data navigation menu, choose Governance > Task inbox. Your task inbox opens to show your assigned or completed tasks.
Check to see if you have any Remediate potential overlays tasks in your inbox.

Click the filter icon to access filter options you can use to narrow the scope of your inbox. For example, to show only remediation tasks: under Task type, select Remediation, then click Apply. You can also sort your task inbox by due date or date assigned.
To start working on a task, open it and click Claim task. When you claim a task, the system prevents it from being worked on by other users.
Review the summary details of the task.
Review all of the queued updates for the locked record, including the initial change that triggered the workflow. Decide whether to apply or discard each update.
Select all of the updates that you want to apply to the record. IBM Match 360 applies the updates in the order that they were received. In cases where the updates conflict, a later update will overwrite one that was received earlier.
Click Submit to apply the selected record updates and complete this task.

If you click Reject, then no changes are made to the record, but the task will still be cleared. In both cases, the affected record will be unlocked and the task will be marked as completed.

From your task inbox, click Completed to see a list of all the tasks that you have completed, including details about each activity that you completed as part of the task.