Prioritize entity discovery sources
Prioritize sources based on timeliness, accuracy, and completeness in Exposure Analytics. When Exposure Analytics aggregates sources, there might be conflicts between field values. With prioritization, you can decide which sources, and which particular fields, are the most accurate for each entity inventory.
Exposure Analytics stores high priority field values over low priority field values, regardless of the consecutive order of the sources in which the fields came from. For example, two sources might provide different values for the same field. Exposure Analytics keeps only one value for each field: the value with the highest priority. A field value can only be overwritten by a field value with an equal or higher priority.
You can also optionally set a retention period for field values if required, so the priority reduces or clears after a specific time period. You might want to set a retention period to age out a stale field, such as an IP address. See Add a field aging rule for details.
You can prioritize sources at the source level and at the field level.
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At the source level: Exposure Analytics assigns the same priority to each field value from that source.
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At the field level: You can be more granular by prioritizing a source at the field level, assigning different priorities to each individual field from a source. For example, a source might have a priority level of High, but the IP address from that source can have an individual field level priority of Highest.
Prioritize an entity discovery source at the source level
To prioritize at the source level, complete the following steps:
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Select Configure, then All configurations.
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In the Exposure analytics section, select Entity discovery sources.
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Select the pencil icon next to the source you want to set a priority for.
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In the Edit modal that appears, select the Priorities tab.
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Select a priority level for each type of entity discovery processing, such as Asset discovery or MAC discovery. The source must contain the key field required by each processing. See Key fields within each discovered inventory.
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(Optional) If you're decreasing a priority level, you can select Reset to update the priority for existing data from a specified time window, such as Past 7 days. For details, see Reprioritize and reset the priority of a source.
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Select Save.
After you change the priority levels, the new priority levels apply as Exposure Analytics processes new data.
Prioritize an entity discovery source at the field level
In rare cases, you might need to prioritize at the field level. For example, there might be a case where a low-priority source might have a high-priority field. You can use source field prioritization to overwrite high-priority sources when a low-priority source has a particularly accurate field. For example, a source might not have accurate data other than an IP address, which might have near real-time accuracy.
Field level prioritization has two additional prioritization levels over and above source level prioritization - Extreme and Lowest. These allow a field value to be assigned a higher or lower priority than any source, to allow for overriding of any other source priorities if needed.
To prioritize a source at the field level, complete the following steps:
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Select Configure, then Exposure analytics .
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On the Configuration settings page, select Default configurations.
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Turn on Edit field priorities.
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Then, go to the Entity discovery sources page. Select Configure > Exposure Analytics > Entity discovery sources.
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Find the source you want to set a priority for and select the pencil icon in that row.
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In the Edit modal that appears, select the Priorities tab.
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Scroll to the new Field priorities section.
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Select the type of Discovery processing you want to apply the field prioritization to.
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Select the Field name that you want to prioritize.
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Select the Priority for the field you selected.
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Select Add.
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Select Save.