Loading identity data

Tracking down identity information can be challenging and involve a lot of institutional politics, but the more complete picture ReCiter has of an individual, the better its performance. The application supports several methods for importing identity data. See also Getting Identity Data.

Data model

All identity data must be prepared according to ReCiter's Identity Data model.

Consistent with best practices, this data model is described at Maven Central. If this is confusing, one can always emulate the sample JSON that ships with ReCiter as a default (see below).

FYI - the pom.xml file must contain a reference to this artifact in order to enforce and validate the proper data model.

Loading identity data

Option 1. Load identity data from file at startup

In application.properties, set the following value to true:

aws.dynamodb.settings.file.import=true

If this setting is set to true, ReCiter will look for an "identity.json" file in /src/main/resources/files

The current version of ReCiter comes with 21 sample identities, including some individuals who are difficult to disambiguate, which can be used for testing ReCiter's performance and accuracy.

Option 2. Load identity data from DynamoDB

In application.properties, set the following value to false:

aws.dynamodb.settings.file.import=false

If this setting is set to true, ReCiter will look in DynamoDB, whether DynamoDB is configured locally or on Amazon Web Services.

Obviously, in this case, you will need to develop a method for loading data into DynamoDB. At Weill Cornell Medicine, this is done with a Java-based institutional client, which updates identity data on a nightly basis.