Elimination of duplicate citations from UCF Shared list download
Summarize
Summary of Elimination of duplicate citations from UCF Shared list download
This feature addresses the issue of duplicate citations in the Unified Compliance Framework (UCF) content downloaded from the Shared list. Duplicate citations occur when multiple citations with different Source IDs are linked to the same Authority Document (AD), often due to their association with different control objectives. Managing these duplicates is essential for maintaining a clean and accurate citation database.
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How Duplicate Citations Occur
- Duplicates arise when UCF content includes multiple citations tied to the same AD but linked to various control objectives.
- These citations share similar Reference, Authority Document, and Description details but have different Source IDs.
- Such citations are considered duplicates only if all three fields—Reference ID, Authority Document, and Description—are identical.
Deduplication Process
- One citation is retained as active; the rest are marked inactive.
- Control objectives linked to inactive citations are reassigned to the active citation in the many-to-many (m2m) relationship table.
- Parent-child relationships are preserved by updating child citations’ parent Source IDs to reference the active citation’s Source ID.
- This ensures that all control objectives and related child citations are consolidated under a single active citation record.
Fix and Practical Application
- The fix is available during UCF Shared list imports or by running an on-demand deduplication job after content download.
- To run the on-demand job: navigate to All > System Definition > Scheduled jobs, select "UCF citation deduplication issue fix," and execute it.
- After execution, duplicate citations are removed, and parent-child relationships are corrected.
- Users can verify results by grouping citations by Reference in the Policy and Compliance > Citations list, where active citations are marked true and duplicates false.
- Opening an active citation record shows all associated control objectives and child citations properly grouped.
Benefits to ServiceNow Customers
This enhancement simplifies citation management by automatically identifying and consolidating duplicates, ensuring data accuracy, and preserving hierarchical relationships. It reduces manual cleanup efforts, facilitates compliance tracking, and maintains integrity between citations and control objectives within ServiceNow’s governance framework.
You can eliminate duplicate citations associated with the authority documents when you receive citations from UCF content as part of the same Shared list.
You can retain one citation as active and mark the duplicate citations as inactive. Move the control objectives of the duplicate citations to the active citation. If the duplicate citation is part of a parent–child hierarchy, then its Source ID is updated with the Source ID of the active citation.
Duplication of UCF citations
Duplication occurs when you download UCF content that has multiple citations tied to the same Authority Document (AD). However, each of these citations is linked to a control objective or can be linked to multiple control objectives. In such cases, when you download UCF there would be as many citations linked to control objectives. The citations have different Source ID and different control objectives linked to them. Nevertheless, such citations are linked to the same AD.
Duplication is identified when the downloaded citations tied to an authority document have similar Reference, Authority document, and Description details but a different Source ID. Such citations that belong to the same authority document but downloaded multiple times are termed as duplicate citations.
Deduplication of UCF citations
You can retain one citation as active and mark the rest of the duplicate citations as inactive. The relationship of this inactive citation with that of the control objective is removed from the m2m table. In its stead, the record of the active citation is added to the control objective in the m2m table.
Similarly, the child citations of the duplicate citations, if any, can be grouped with the child citations of the active parent citation in the Citations related list of the active citation. For example, if the citation with Source ID 0123 is being retained, then the parent of the duplicate citation's child citation must be updated as 0123. Or, the child citation's parent Source ID as 0123 must be updated, so that the citation's parent–child relationship is retained.
Fix provided to eliminate duplicate citations
- Import data from the UCF Shared list. To download a UCF shared list, see Download a UCF shared list.
- Run the UCF citation deduplication issue fix on-demand job if you don’t want to import UCF again. This job eliminates the duplicate citations and fixes the parent–child relationship by appending the child citations of the inactive parent citation to the active parent.
- To run the on-demand job, navigate to .
- Select UCF citation deduplication issue fix and click Execute Now.
- Navigate to
- Select Group By and right-click the list controls icon.
- Select Reference in the list.
You can view citations with unique Reference ID, unique Description, and each citation belongs to a different AO. In the Active column, the active citation is true, and the duplicate citations are marked as false. Select and open one of the citation record, all control objectives are grouped in the Control objectives related list, and its child citations in the Citations related list.
Note:Citations are considered as duplicate only when their Reference ID, Authority document, Description are the same. Even if one of these conditions isn’t fulfilled, then they’re considered as two different citations and not as duplicate.