Matching Algorithm
The Household Matching Algorithm delivered as part of the initial configuration is designed as a match algorithm for Household entities. This algorithm is most relevant in a Business to Consumer (B2C) style implementation and consists of two normalizers and two matchers, with an Auto Threshold of 90.0 and a Clerical Review Threshold of 80.0. The Clerical review threshold is both higher and tighter to ensure only customer records that are extremely likely to belong to the same household are considered.
It is worth noting that the Household Matching Algorithm uses the Link Golden Record solution engine rather than the Merge Gold Record approach. This is to ensure that individual customers that are determined to be of the same household are linked to a separate household entity object rather than merged.
For details regarding the Household entity and its purpose, refer to the Data Modeling topic of this documentation here.
For more information on configuring a Matching Algorithm, refer to the Configuring Matching Algorithms topic of the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation here.
Normalizers
Normalizers are used to standardize values that are being compared. This ensures equal formatting is applied, increasing the accuracy of the comparisons being made. For more information, refer to the Match Criteria Data Elements topic of the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation here.
Last Name Normalizer
The Last Name Normalizer uses the Words Normalizer, and only evaluates the Last Name attribute of an individual record. This is because households are referred to only by the Last Name, or household name.
Address Normalizer
Because it is recommended to model addresses as data containers, configure the Address Normalizer to normalize data container attributes as defined within the Address component model.
Matchers
For general information on configuring Matchers, refer to the Match Criteria Matchers topic of the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation here.
Name Matcher
The Last Name Matcher is largely left with the default settings. An equivalent names look-up table is not utilized for Household entities since last names generally do not have shortened versions or a nickname alternative.
Address Matcher
The Address Matcher utilizes default configuration values.
Rules
When considering match rules, the recommended strategy is to dissect the customer’s information into the smallest possible portions of data. These rules should not weigh the sum of all the customer’s input data (which is likely inefficient) and requires a careful analysis of the customer dataset to determine what combinations of attributes present the best chance of uniqueness.
There is only one rule associated with the Household algorithm, which evaluates the scores of the Name and Address matchers. The resulting score is then weighed against the defined algorithm thresholds to determine whether the individual record should be created, auto-linked to an existing record, or it requires clerical review.
The initial configuration matches on Last Name and Address for households. Matching on Last Names may be advantageous in identifying family units within a large population such as a retirement home or a school. However, in some cases a married couple within a household may not have the same Last Name. It may be beneficial to make Address weigh more in scenarios like this.
Conversely, sometimes a large number of customer records with the same Address should not be considered the same household. This can include college campuses, retirement homes, and similar institutions. These scenarios should be handled on a case-by-case basis. However, one possible approach is to utilize an anonymous words table to anonymize aforementioned addresses, eliminating addresses from the matching logic for such records.
Survivorship
The following survivorship rules are used by the Household Algorithm:
- Value: Most Recent
- Attribute / Attribute Group: Last Name
- Last Edit Date Attribute: Last Edit Date - Record
- Data Container: Most Recent
- Business Condition: DataContainer Survivorship Address
- Data Container Type: Main Address
- Last Edit Date Attribute: Last Edit Date - Main Address
Note: Data Containers require their own survivorship rules. Additionally, each Survivorship rule requires a unique Last Edit Date attribute.
Match Codes
The Household Match Code is generated on the Individual Customer entity type along with the Individual Match Codes. Since a household is identified by its last name, the Household Match Code is composed of the zip code + Metaphone 3 representation of the individual’s last name.
The Household Match Code contain the prefix 'ZILNM~'.