AO Business Contact Match
Overview
Advanced Object (AO) Business Contact Match identifies matching businesses using their business name, address, ZIP Code, phone number and URL, and includes the contact name for an added level of matching. It affords a high degree of control over the matching process, with numerous parameters that can be adjusted to improve match quality. The default settings in the configuration dialog represent best business practices and provide an excellent starting point.
AO Business Contact Match accepts a single stream as input and produces a single output containing the original records with the match IDs and other optional information appended. To use the Business Contact Match, you must have a Business Name field, a Personal Name field and address fields (Address, either whole or components, City, State and ZIP Code).
Records output with null Match IDs are uniques (unmatched). Records with non-null Match IDs are matches. Use the Generate Match Info option on the Match Info tab to distinguish between Master/Unique/Duplicate and append other match information (see AO Match Append Info for details on output).
AO Business Contact Match configuration parameters
AO Business Contact Match has six sets of configuration parameters in addition to the standard execution options: Input, Input 2, Match, Segment, Options, and Table.
AO Business Contact Match: Input tab
Business
Parameter | Description |
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Business name | (Required) Company name used for matching.
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Business name 2 | (Optional) Alternate company name that can also be used for cross-field matching (for example, Lotus & IBM). Allows for different companies to be matched to either field.
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Business keyword | (Optional) Firm keyword to allow for matching to be qualified based on special field (for example, BCBS of MA vs. BCBS of ME) The ME/MA would be in its own field.
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Contact
Parameter | Description |
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Contact type | Select input name type, either Full name or Parsed name.
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Name | If Contact type is Full name, the name field.
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First name | If Contact type is Parsed name, given name (John A Smith Jr).
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Middle name | If Contact type is Parsed name, middle name (John A Smith Jr).
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Last name | If Contact type is Parsed name, surname (John A Smith Jr).
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Suffix | If Contact type is Parsed name, generation name (John A Smith Jr).
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Address
Parameter | Description |
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Address type | Specify whether input address is Full address or Component address.
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Address1 | Required if Address type is Full address. First line of unparsed address.
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Address2 | Optional if Address type is Full address. Second line of unparsed address.
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Street number | Required if Address type is Component address. Street number (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street predir | Required if Address type is Component address. Street predirectional (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street name | Required if Address type is Component address. Street name (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street suffix | Required if Address type is Component address. Street suffix (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street postdir | Required if Address type is Component address. Street postdirectional (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Suite/Apt # | Required if Address type is Component address. Suite/apartment number (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Address last line
Parameter | Description |
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City | (Required) City.
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State | (Required) State.
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ZIP | (Required) ZIP Code.
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Other match fields
Parameter | Description |
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Gender | Gender. Must be Male, Female, or blank (unknown or indeterminate).
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Phone | Optional. Telephone number or alternate input field.
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URL | Optional. Web address. Alternate input field can be specified.
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Unique Record ID
Parameter | Description |
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Record ID | Optional. Field containing the unique record ID.
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AO Business Contact Match: Input2 tab
If alternate input fields are specified, these are compared to the primary versions specified on the Input tab.
Alternate address
If you specify an alternate address, it must have the same format as the primary address on the Input tab. If multiple addresses are used, the Address ID may not represent a single location.
Single field address
Field | Description |
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Address1 | (Required) First line of unparsed address.
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Address2 | (Optional) Second line of unparsed address.
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OR Multi-field address
Field | Description |
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Street number | Required. Street number (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street predir | Required. Street predirectional (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street name | Required. Street name (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street suffix | Required. Street suffix (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Street postdir | Required. Street postdirectional (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Suite/Apt # | Required. Suite/apartment number (123 E Main Street NW Apt 101).
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Address last line
Field | Description |
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City | (Required) City.
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State | (Required) State.
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ZIP | (Required) ZIP Code.
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Other match fields
Field | Description |
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Phone 2 | (Optional) Telephone number or alternate input field.
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URL 2 | Optional. Web address. Alternate input field can be specified.
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AO Business Contact Match: Match tab
Business matching
Field | Description |
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Business score | Match threshold for business name field after any optional business adjustments (described below) are taking into account.
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Match nicknames | Allows for personal names in a firm to be standardized. For example, in Liz Smith Enterprises versus Elizabeth Smith Enterprises, Liz and Elizabeth would be treated as identical.
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Ethnic nickname match | If selected, matches less common, but valid nicknames (such as Sean/John). Unwanted nicknames can be removed by adding a "remove" entry to the Name alias table.
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Initials | Recover match points if Initial matches a name (for example, J Robin Smith Inc versus Jonathon Robert Smith, Inc).
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Acronyms | Assign acronym matches a specific score for their part of the match (for example, International Machine Parts versus IMP).
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Abbreviations | Recover match points due to an abbreviation identified by pattern rather than known value (for example, Halbert Construction Contractors versus Hlbrt Construction Contractors).
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Missing words | Recover match points due to missing or disjoint words (for example, Halston Construction Contractors versus Halston Contractors).
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Word match threshold | Set minimum similarity threshold to consider any pair of words "the same."
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Business keyword matching
Field | Description |
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Keyword score | Match threshold for business keyword field after optional business Keyword adjustments (described below) are taken into account.
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Match blank keyword | Specifies method for matching blank business keyword input field. Options are:
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Match abbreviations | Allows for variations in the business keyword field (for example, MISS vs. MISSISSIPPI to be considered an exact match as a case of abbreviation).
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Contact matching
Field | Description |
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First name score | Match threshold for first name field.
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Last name score | Match threshold for last name field.
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Match gender | If selected, records with two different genders (no matter how close) will never match (for example, Alexander versus Alexandra). If a full name is selected or no gender is included, Data Management will attempt to generate one.
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Match First/Middle | If selected, enables cross-comparison of the first name against the middle name.
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Match contacts only within matched business | If selected, attempts to match business contact names only if they are in the same business.
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Address matching
Field | Description |
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Address score | Match threshold for address fields, set globally for all address components.
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Street number score | Optional match threshold for street number field.
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Street name score | Optional match threshold for street name field.
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Suite score | Optional match threshold for apt/suite # field.
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Simple street numbers | If selected, 101A and 101 Main Street are treated as identical.
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Substring match on suite number | If selected, increases flexibility in matching of apt/suite # by allowing substring matches such as 10 vs. 101.
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Match PO Box/Street | If selected, allows for records where one address is a PO Box and the other is a street address to be considered a match (Y/N) when the ZIP Codes are the same. If enabled, this has an independent segmentation (ZIP Code only) than the one set by the Segment address data by parameter.
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PO Box match score | Alternate match threshold for business field if Match PO Box to street is set to "Y". You may want a higher match threshold for PO Box/Street matching then when matching the same address format. This ensures tighter matches to reduce false positives when PO Box and Street are alike.
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Other matching
Field | Description |
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Phone score | Match threshold for Phone field.
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URL score | Match threshold for URL field.
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AO Business Contact Match: Segment tab
Segmentation
Field | Description |
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Match only within segment | If selected, data will be compared solely within the segment as defined below.
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Segment data by | Specifies method for defining sort and comparison minimums for address data. Options are:
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Street name letters | The number of letters of the street name to be used in address data segmentation. Ignored when segment type is Custom.
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Street number digits | The number of digits of the street number to be used in address data segmentation. Ignored when segment type is Custom.
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Custom segment | Optional. If Segment data by is Custom, the field containing the segment key.
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Segment size limits
Field | Description |
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Limit segment | Turns on segmentation limits for all active match criteria.
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Max segment size | If Limit segment is selected, specifies maximum number of records compared in a single comparison group. The default setting allows for nearly-unlimited segment size. If you want to limit segment size to avoid runaway computation, potentially at the expense of missing a few record matches, set this to a lower value like 1000.
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AO Business Contact Match: Options tab
Reporting
Field | Description |
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Output component match IDs | If selected, outputs IDs showing the match groups for each match logic in addition to the consolidated result.
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Output match score | If selected, outputs the overall score from the match records as a percentage between 1-100.
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Output match info | If selected, outputs additional Match information. "Y" will generate Match Type, Group Counts/Order/Rank, Unique No., HOH Flag at the finest level. "All" will generate the same information at all levels as determined by the criteria selected (for example, Address, Phone, Email).
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Source control
Field | Description |
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Source | Field containing the logical description for input data source. This is usually defined in AO Define Source.
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Priority | Field containing Match Rank Priority value, typically assigned using AO Define Source. Determines a record's position in a match group.
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Suppress flag | Field containing suppression definition for a source (value should be Y or N).
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Internal dedupe flag | Field containing a Y/N flag indicating whether or not data from a particular source should be compared against itself (deduped) or solely against other sources. As a general rule, master databases are not internally deduped whereas update files are.
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Compare sources not internally deduped | If a matching process has more than one source with the internal dedupe field set to "N", selecting this will compare the two sources.
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Master record
Values in text fields sort in alphabetical order, even if the characters are numbers. Numbers are sorted by the first digit, then by the second digit, and so on, instead of by the numeric values. Thus "12" will appear before "7". Check data types or use leading zeros ("07") to ensure correct tie-breaking. Most text fields have a limit of 100MB.
Field | Description |
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Random priority | Uses random sorting as final tie-breaker. This option may generate different results for each run. If this is option is not selected, the final tie-breaker is the input record order.
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Tie-breaker field 1 | The first field used to break priority ties.
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Order 1 | If ASCENDING, then lower values of Tie-breaker 1 field will have higher priority.
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Tie-breaker field 2 | The second field used to break priority ties.
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Order 2 | If ASCENDING, then lower values of Tie-breaker 2 field will have higher priority.
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Tie-breaker field 3 | The third field used to break priority ties.
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Order 3 | If ASCENDING, then lower values of Tie-breaker 3 field will have higher priority.
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Parallel processing
Field | Description |
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Parallelism level | Set to the lesser of the number of CPU cores on the Execution Server, or the number of threads configured in the project in which the macro is embedded.
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Optimize for large segments | If you receive warnings like "Window Compare segment size for value (06828EAS3135) has exceeded 2000," enable this option. Comparing large candidate groups may reduce matching efficiency. Selecting this option increases the number of records that can be sent to a matching process without slowing processing.
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AO Business Contact Match: Table tab
Field | Description | ||||||||||||
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Name alias table | Path and name of optional DLD table used to augment or override the alias values defined within the macro. The table must be of the form:
where
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Business alias table | Path and name of optional DLD table used to augment or override the alias values defined within the macro. The table must be of the form.
where
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Business noise table | Path and name of optional DLD table used to add additional "noise" words for Firm matching. The table must be a single-column DLD table of the form:
where
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Configure AO Business Contact Match
Select AO Business Contact Match.
Go to the Input tab on the Properties pane.
Select the input fields.
Optionally, specify alternate input fields on the Input2 tab.
Go to the Match tab to edit matching options.
Go to the Segment tab to edit segmentation options.
Go to the Options tab to configure reporting, source control, master record, and other options.
Optionally, specify alias and noise reference tables on the Table tab.
Optionally, go to the Execution tab, and then set Web service options.