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Creating/Applying a Master Rule

 Choose or Design a Master Rule 

• Select a Pre-Built Master Rule
  • When using strict/rigid deduplication criteria the decision may be made (after a quick review of the records) to process all the records in the grid view 
  • Master rules do not need to be applied to each duplicate set individually (but can be as mentioned above using the duplicate key right click menu)
  •  Select the "Check All"  button at the bottom of the grid and all duplicate sets will be checked
  • To view the master-slave designations from the selected rule, click the "Apply Rule to All" button (the "Apply Rule to All" button can also be used, this will check the boxes as well as apply the selected master rule to all records)
  • When the user is satisfied with the master record selection, they should review the options in the right hand pane (see step 4)
  • Alternatively, masters records can be selected based on the currently selected master rule in the upper right hand of the interface when the end user selects "Merge Checked Objects" and the merge process will be completed (this option will not allow for master-slave designation to be reviewed before merging, the master selection and merging happen in one step)

Currently selected master rule

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• Creation and Editing of Master Rules
  • "New Rule" button: opens a pop up box for the user to create a custom master rule
  • "Edit Rule" button: used to edit an existing rule or to just view the setup of an existing rule (will open the rule with the check mark)
  • "Delete Rule" button: Deletes the rule from the application
  • A master rule can be created for any object
  • When building a master rule there is the option to add unlimited conditions for analyzing either the record (as a whole) or the field values that the record contains.
  • At the record level, options such as oldest, newest, most recently modified (note that RECORD is the field selection for these options to appear) and many other advanced constraints are available. For field values, the Single Table Dedupe displays constraints appropriate for the data type of the field being analyzed.

• Scoring a rule
  • After the setup of the initial field and constraint the user can score the positive incident of the constraint with an arbitrary point value.
  •  The default rules that ship with the software are based upon a 100 point scoring system but any system can be used.
  •  When adding multiple constraints the record is scored in cumulative fashion with each additional positive expression adding to the total score of the records.  
  • Additionally, negative scores can be applied to penalize a record.

A complex rule with multiple expressions and a score delta set

• Using the Score Delta
  • The final component to creating a Master Rule is the decision to use or not to use a score delta
  • The score delta will be used by the deduper to help determine master vs. servant records
  • The value of the score delta determines how many points away a master record has to score from the next nearest servant record in order to be selected as the master

If the score delta threshold is set and not met: (records tie and have the same point value)

• The deduper will use the rule as a scoring system only
• It will not be able to select a master
• The scores will be displayed, but the pins will remain grey and the boxes, unchecked

• If no score delta is set:
  • The deduper will score the records
  • The record with the highest score will be chosen as the master
  • If there is a tie, it will pick the first record in the list

See also