Many fields in both Collaborate and DataManager are implemented via a list of customizable selection values or “lookups”. Examples of this kind of field include Languages and Function Units. If no custom items have been added to the lookup list in either tool, the lists of selection items in Collaborate and DataManager may be identical. Since every selection value in Collaborate already has a counterpart in DataManager, merging the lookup lists is not necessary.
If a lookup value in Collaborate has no counterpart in DataManager, the solution is simple: the Collaborate item is added to DataManager as a new metric selection value. To prevent the creation of duplicate items in cases where there are only slight differences between a lookup value in Collaborate and a similar (but not identical) item in DataManager, the following matching rules are applied:
1. The names of all Collaborate values are compared to existing DataManager values. Leading, trailing, and internal whitespace or spaces are stripped away and case (upper case, lower case) is ignored.
2. There can be only one matching DataManager lookup for each Collaborate lookup.
When exporting a Closeout project, if a lookup value used in the Collaborate project matches a value in DataManager, the DataManager value is used in the merged DataManager record. If the Collaborate value does NOT match any DataManager value, a new value is added to DataManager using the exact spelling of the Collaborate item.