TDM: Question on using FormatFPE1Ext

Products

• CA Test Data Manager (Data Finder / Grid Tools)

Issue/Introduction

This is a question involving multiple project space – and many versions, across many DBs, schemas and tables.

We are using FormatFPE1EXT for masking a particular transaction number (as VARCHAR2 in Oracle) that gets generated (in production) in a sequence in production. This transactions may get generated through different lines of business However for a particular line of business, it would get stored in a specific schema. 

The issue we are facing is that for masked data when we use through UI, the "masked values" that replaced the original sequence number may be outside the optimal sequence number and that creates an issue when the testers try to generate the new transaction in their environment, the new transaction value is often found to be existing.

Is there a way we can control the replacement value to be Greater Than the minimum Threshold and Less than the Maximum Threshold? 

e.g. if in production our transection sequence number is between 125 and 23452345, the masked values generated within an environment should be < 23452345 or a specific higher threshold we may set to ensure we don't have conflict again for existing masked value. 

Environment

All support TDM releases.

Cause

Product limitation.

Resolution

Unfortunately it isn't possible.  The only limitation which can be used is the input/output alphabet. You could achieve what you want by masking only portion of the input (for example masking only suffix).  

Just to clarify, it's not that we don't want to, it's just how it works (it guarantees uniqueness which would be harmed by the limitation).