MDM Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield MDM facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. In Informatica MDM Hub, what is the purpose of the Schema Manager? → To define and manage the physical and logical structure of the Hub Store
2. Which protocol does the SIF Web Services API use for message transport? → SOAP over HTTP/HTTPS
3. What is the significance of the 'HUB_STATE_IND' column on a base object record in Informatica MDM? → It tracks whether the record is active, pending delete, or has been logically deleted
4. Why is normalization important in data modeling? → It simplifies data structure and eliminates redundancies
5. Which setting in an Informatica MDM match rule set defines the minimum score a record pair must achieve to be considered a potential duplicate? → Match Threshold
6. Which metric is most commonly used to measure the effectiveness of a data stewardship program in MDM? → Exception resolution rate and time-to-resolve for data quality issues
7. What does 'trust decay' (downdate trust) represent in Informatica MDM? → Reduction in trust score as data ages over time without being refreshed
8. In Informatica MDM Hub's trust framework, what does a higher trust score for a source system indicate? → Its values are more likely to win survivorship and populate the best version of truth
9. Which SIF transport mode allows the MDM Hub to process requests asynchronously using a JMS queue? → Asynchronous JMS transport
10. What happens when two records exceed the 'Auto-Merge Threshold' in Informatica MDM? → They are automatically merged without human intervention
11. Which Informatica MDM feature allows stewards to review and approve proposed changes to master records before they are committed? → Pending State workflow
12. In Informatica MDM, which governance role is primarily responsible for defining and enforcing data quality rules for a specific business domain? → Data Steward
13. In Informatica MDM, which tool is used by administrators to configure roles, assign users, and set privileges? → Hub Console Security Manager
14. In Informatica MDM SIF, what is an 'Interaction' object? → A wrapper object that encapsulates a SIF request and its associated metadata
15. Which of these supports automated data synchronization? → Middleware tools like Mulesoft
16. Which Informatica MDM data quality dimension is violated when the same customer appears twice with different email addresses in the golden record store? → Uniqueness
17. In a DACI governance model applied to MDM, what does the 'C' (Consulted) role represent? → Stakeholders whose input is sought before a data governance decision is made
18. An Informatica MDM implementation uses Hierarchy Manager. Which additional security element must be configured to restrict access to specific hierarchy nodes? → HM relationship base object privileges
19. In Informatica Data Director (IDD), what is the 'Merge Manager' task used for? → Allowing stewards to manually review and approve or reject proposed record merges
20. What type of relationship is typically modeled in hierarchy management? → Parent-child
21. In Informatica MDM, which database schema stores the security metadata including user roles and privileges? → CMX_SYSTEM schema
22. In MDM Hub's data model, what distinguishes a 'Relationship Base Object' from a standard base object? → It represents many-to-many associations between two base objects using foreign key columns
23. A user in Informatica MDM can view records but cannot promote them to the best version of truth. Which privilege is most likely missing? → PROMOTE privilege
24. What is the effect of enabling 'Allow Remerge' on an Informatica MDM base object? → It allows batch match to re-evaluate previously auto-merged records for additional merges
25. In Informatica MDM Hub, the XREF table created during load primarily serves which purpose? → Maps source system keys to MDM surrogate keys for cross-referencing
26. In Informatica MDM, what is the primary purpose of the Stage process in the data integration pipeline? → To load raw source records into the landing and staging tables
27. Which Informatica MDM component handles authentication when integrating with an enterprise LDAP directory? → Hub Server
28. Which of the following ensures consistency during system-to-system updates? → Version control and transactional integrity
29. Which of the following is a key component of a master data model? → Entities, attributes, and relationships
30. Which of the following best defines data quality? → The usability and accuracy of data