Match Rule Confidence Modes
Match Rules determine how Match Attributes are used when a match request has been received. There are two Confidence Modes for Match Rules:
- Canonical: Rules designed to identify exactly one match. If a Canonical Rule matches during a match request, processing stops and the record is returned. If a Canonical Rule matches more than one record, the response is demoted to a potential match rather than an exact match. If no Canonical Rule matches, then Potential Rules are executed.
- Potential: Rules designed to identify multiple possible matches. Potential Rules cannot create an exact match, even if only one possible record is found. All Potential Rules are executed (if no Canonical Rule matches). If no Potential Rules match, then the record in the match request is considered new.
Rule Attributes
A Match Rule Attribute specifies how the Attribute is used within the Match Rule. Rule Attributes are attached to Rules via Matchgrid >> Rules >> Rule Attributes >> Add New Rule Attribute. The following fields are defined:
- Attribute: The Match Attribute configuration to apply.
- Crosscheck Attribute: If specified, the Match Attribute configuration to apply. See below for more information.
- Search Type: The type of search to apply to this Attribute for this rule (as determined by the Attribute's configuration):
- Distance: Not supported for Canonical Rules.
- Exact
- Invalidate: See below for more information.
- Mapping: See Attribute Maps for more details.
- Substring: Not supported for Canonical Rules.
- Skip: The Attribute is not used in this Rule.
- Required: If true, this Attribute must be found in the inbound request, or the Rule will be skipped.
- Match Empty: If true, if no value for this Attribute is found in the inbound request, the Attribute will be compared against Matchgrid entries with no value. Match Empty is not available if Required is true.
Attribute Crosscheck
Attribute Crosscheck allows for an inbound attribute to be checked against multiple fields in the Matchgrid. For example, if the Matchgrid defines both a Legal Given Name and a Preferred Given Name, but the inbound request only contains a legal name, it may still be desirable to check the inbound legal name against known preferred names.
To enable Crosscheck, set the Crosscheck Attribute value of the Rule Attribute to the desired target (ie: Matchgrid) Attribute. The primary Attribute configuration will be used to identify the attribute of interest in the inbound request, and the Crosscheck Attribute will be used to determine the search parameters for the Matchgrid.
To check against multiple Matchgrid attributes, add multiple Rule Attributes for the same inbound Attribute. Similarly, to check multiple inbound attributes against the same Matchgrid attribute, add a Rule Attribute for each inbound Attribute.
Care should be taken when using Match Empty with Crosscheck, in particular for Attributes that are part of Attribute Groups and therefore more likely to have empty values. For example, consider a Matchgrid with four attributes: Given Name (official), Family Name (official), Given Name (preferred), and Family Name (preferred). Unless preferred names are required, these values will occasionally (or often) be empty.
If Family Name (official) is set to crosscheck Family Name (preferred), and furthermore Match Empty is set to true for Family Name (official) (meaning Family Name is optional, perhaps to account for records with only a Given Name), then if an inbound request does not include a Family Name the Attribute will match any matchgrid entry with a blank Family Name (preferred) value (subject to any other Rule Attributes configured for the Rule).
Invalidation Search Type
Rule Attributes configured with a Search Type of Invalidate are used to drop a Canonical result to a Potential result when an attribute that was expected to match did not match. For example, consider a set of Rule Attributes that match on the following record:
| Record | Given Name | Family Name | Date of Birth | Mobile Phone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| new | Pat | Lee | 1983-03-18 | 818-555-1212 |
| 1 | Pat | Lee | 1983-03-18 | 212-555-1212 |
If Mobile Phone were configured with Search Type Invalidate Record 1 would be returned as a Potential match rather than a Canonical match because the number was expected to match but did not. Both the search value and record value must be non-empty for the invalidation check to be performed.
Rule Attributes with Search Type Invalidate are ignored for Potential Rules.
Invalidation is available as of Match v1.2.0.
Attribute Search Logic
If a given Attribute is attached more than once to the same Rule (typically for Crosscheck), the results of each Attribute will be OR'd together. In other words, only one such Attribute need match for the search Rule.
Results across different Attributes are AND'd together.
For example, a typical Match Rule might (in pseudo code) look like this (where the preferred names are configured via Crosscheck):
(legal_given OR preferred_given) AND (legal_family OR preferred_family) AND date_of_birth