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Matching, Linking, and Merging

The STEP Matching, Linking, and Merging component offers powerful functionality for identifying and handling duplicate product, entity, asset, and classification objects in STEP.

The matching, linking, and merging functionality is most commonly used for:

• Cleanup operations (during data migration, for example)
• Matching of the same item from multiple suppliers
• Matching of the same customer from different source systems
• Matching of internally enriched records with data from external data suppliers
• Consolidation of information from different systems
• Cleansing data after migrating records from various sources

Strategy for Identifying Duplicates

Before configuring the matching, linking, and merging functionality you must define what qualifies two or more objects as duplicates.

• For products, you could be looking for objects that have the same EAN number, or the same or similar manufacturer and manufacturer part number information.
• For customer data, you could be looking for people that have the same or similar names, combined with the same or similar addresses.

There are also many cases far more complex than those listed above.

When dealing with datasets of thousands or millions of objects, comparing each and every object with every other object is not a viable solution. In order to limit the number of comparisons, Match Codes must be generated for the applicable objects and then evaluated and matched together via a Matching Algorithm. The system can be configured to handle those matches in two ways: by simply merging matching records, or by generating Golden Records, which combines the data of all confirmed matching objects into one 'true' record. Based on the configuration, these matched objects can either remain in the system and link to the golden record, or get permanently merged into the golden record.

For more information on match codes and matching algorithms, see the Matching, Linking, and Merging Elements section of the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation here.

For more information of golden records, see the Golden Record Match Actions section of the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation here.

Matching, Linking, and Merging in Web UI

Several different matching, linking, and merging tasks can be completed in Web UI. See the list below for Web UI topics relevant to the Link Golden Record and Identify Duplicates solutions:

• Potential Duplicates List - Found in the Web UI Setup and User Guide / Web User Interfaces documentation here.
• Merging Confirmed Matches - Found in the Web UI Setup and User Guide / Web User Interfaces documentation here.
• Configuring a Deduplication Clerical Review - Found in the Using a Web UI documentation here.

For a breakdown of Web UI topics relevant to the Merge Golden Record solution, refer to the Matching and Merging in Web UI section of the Matching, Linking, and Merging documentation here.

Note: This list will be updated periodically as additional Web UI topics are developed.

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