What Is a QKB?

Overview

The SAS Quality Knowledge Base (QKB) is a collection of files that store data and logic that define data management operations such as parsing, standardization, and matching. SAS software products refer to the QKB when performing data management operations, also referred to as data cleansing, on your data.

A QKB supports locales organized by language and country, for example, English, United States; English, Canada; and French, Canada.

QKB Definitions

Data and logic in a QKB are organized into a set of objects called definitions. In SAS Data Management Studio, these definitions are listed on the Quality Knowledge Base tab of the QKB interface, as shown in the next display.

Definitions on the Quality Knowledge Base Tab

Each definition defines a single, context-sensitive data management operation. For example, a definition in a QKB might contain data and logic used to parse phone numbers. Another definition might contain data and logic used to determine the gender of individuals by analyzing their names.

When you use SAS data management products to process your data, you specify which definitions the software should invoke. For example, if you are standardizing company names with the Standardization node in a data job, you can specify that the node should use the Organization definition when processing data in the Company field in your table.

A QKB contains definitions developed for use with common types of data such as names, addresses, and phone numbers. You can use definitions in a QKB as delivered, or you can use SAS Data Management Studio to customize the QKB by modifying definitions or creating new definitions for use with your own business data. Since a QKB is used by SAS Data Management Studio, SAS Data Quality Server, and the SAS Data Quality Accelerators, QKB customizations are automatically available to your entire enterprise.

To display the help for QKBs installed at your site, see Accessing Documentation for QKBs. There are periodic updates to a QKB with new definitions and enhancements to existing definitions. To download updates to a QKB, visit the QKB downloads page.