Consumer View Matching Tool
Consumer View Matching Tool
Use Consumer View Matching to match your customer file to the Experian Consumer View Data.
Macro Tool
This tool is a macro that requires a separate data install and license. To use this tool, contact your Account Executive.
The Consumer View Matching tool matches on up to 3 different match methods:
Name + Phone
Name + Address
Address only
The tool automatically chooses which match methods to apply based on which columns you pick. For example:
If an address is specified without any name or phone data, the tool runs the Address-Only match group.
If a name and phone are specified without any address data, the tool runs the Name-Phone match group.
If name, phone, and address are specified, the tool runs all 3 match groups: Name-Phone, Name-Address, and Address-Only.
If address matching is desired, CASS address standardization is required before the matching is done, which should improve match rates. You can indicate in the tool interface whether CASS has already been run on your file. If CASS has not been run, the tool runs CASS on the customer address data. If however CASS has already been run on the customer address data, the tool skips CASS and go straight into the matching process.
If the phone is included in the match, the tool strips any non-numerical characters from that field (creating a new field to match on).
If name fields are specified in the tool, various matching methodologies are used to try to help improve match rates. Because names can easily have differences, Soundex keys are used to help with matching.
The tool produces a report output. It shows which types of matching were executed by the tool, along with the match rate for the file and descriptions of all of the different match levels that the tool employs.
Configure the Tool
Address Fields tab: Address fields are required to match by Address-Only or Name-Address.
Run file through CASS: Choose this option to run all input records through the CASS tool for address standardization. The CASS address fields are used to match against the Experian Consumer View Household file. Specify the required fields:
Address is a required field.
Address2 is an optional field.
City, State, and ZIP are required. Specify if these are in separate fields or in one combined field.
When available, unit or suite designators are required to match households.
Records have already been through CASS, so do not need CASS Processing: Choose this option if your records have already been CASS certified. Specify the required fields:
CASS Address
CASS Suite
CASS City
CASS State
CASS ZIP
Name and Phone Fields:
Match using Name: Name fields are required to match by Name-Address or Name-Phone. By including the name in the match, the tool matches against the Experian Consumer View data at the individual level, and as such returns more data fields from the Consumer View data than matching at just the household level (in other words, more than just Address-Only matching). When names are selected, the tool runs through a few different match levels to try to improve the match rate of the file. It uses Soundex keys built from the fields that you select. Specify the required fields:
First Name is a required field.
Last Name is a required field.
Match using Phone:
Specify the Phone field.
Output Details
R anchor: This output stream contains a report which details the number of input records that matched at each level, with a percentage based on the total number of input records. The Match Level descriptions are also provided to allow easy reference and understanding of the levels. Attach a Render tool from the right output to write the report in the desired format.
D anchor: The D output is the data output of matched records, which includes all of your input data along with other fields (listed in the table below), except in the case of address-only matches, where the name columns from your file are rendered empty to emphasize that the matching result for that record did not involve the individual’s name. If you want these columns populated in the output, you can join the output back to the source file with a Join tool.
Field Name | Description |
|---|---|
CVMacroFuzzyMatchOverallScore | This is the percent match found from the Fuzzy Match tool within the macro itself. |
CVMacroMatchGroup | The category of the Match Level. There are 3 Match Groups: Address-Only, Name-Address, and Name-Phone. Each Match Group has 1-to-6 Match Levels associated with it. For more on Match Levels, refer to the section below. |
CV MacroMatchLevel | The level of match for each record ranges from A to M. For more on Match Levels, refer to the section below. |
CVMacroRecID | A sequential number added to your file when your first input it to the tool. Some records match multiple times simply due to the nature of the Experian data and the match level. Fields worth looking at to better understand your results are the Household Person Number, ADDRESS ID, HH_ZeroBasedRecordID, and if doing name matching too PERSON ID NUMBER and IndividualZeroBasedID. |
User Input Fields | Fields that stream into the tool are included in the output. |
CASS_Address | This field contains the input address along with any corrections or standardizations performed by the CASS tool. This can include fixed misspellings or the insertion of missing suffixes and directionals. |
CASS_Suite | Sets the suite name and number associated with the input address. |
CASS_City | If the City Property is not supplied in the input table, the CASS utility uses the official city or municipality name of the ZIP or Postal Code instead. If the City Property is supplied, the utility only changes the city name if it's incorrect or an unapproved mailing name. In these cases, the official city name for the ZIP are returned in this field. |
CASS_State | Returns the 2-letter state abbreviation associated with the input address. |
CASS_ZIP | Returns the 5-digit or 9-digit U.S. ZIP Code or the 6-character Canadian Postal Code associated with the input address. This property can be input with the address to be verified in place of city and state. |
CASS_Results | Returns a code that indicates Status and Error codes for an address. These are 4-character codes (2 letters followed by 2 numbers), delimited by commas, which indicate status and errors generated by the CASS process. A Result code for a coded address record might look something like this: “AC03, AC11, AS01, AS15.” Instead of looking at multiple fields to determine the status or error of a record, you can look at the output of the CASS Results field. Currently, there are close to 50 possible result codes. Records that have ‘AE’ in the CASS results code are filtered out, and removed from any of the Calgary joins. They are detailed in the report output as 'Unable to CASS the address, results code contained an AE code'. Go to Result Codes for a complete list of codes. |
Fields from the Experian Individual file (if name matching was selected.) | According to the data license agreement, this file can only be used for analytical purposes and therefore fields such as Individual names, Household addresses and phone numbers can't be included in the output even though these fields can be queried. If you wish to license these fields, please contact your Customer Support Engineer. For a list of fields that can be queried and returned, please refer to the Documentation folder in the data installation directory. |
Fields from the Experian Household File | According to the data license agreement, this file can only be used for analytical purposes and therefore fields such as Individual names, Household addresses and phone numbers cannot be included in the output even though these fields can be queried. If you wish to license these fields, please contact your Customer Support Engineer. For a list of fields that can be queried and returned, please refer to the Documentation folder in the data installation directory. |
Match Group and Match Level Details
Match Levels for Address-Only Match Group:
Match Level A: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite and CASS_ZIP.
Match Levels for Name-Address Match Group:
Match Level G: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite, CASS_ZIP, last name field, and the first name field.
Match Level H: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_ZIP, last name field, and the first name field.
Match Level I: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite, CASS_ZIP, last name field, and the Soundex key for the first name field.
Match Level J: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite, CASS_ZIP, the Soundex key for the last name field, and the first name field.
Match Level K: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite, CASS_ZIP, the Soundex key for the last name field, and the Soundex key for the first name field.
Match Level L: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite, CASS_ZIP, and the last name field.
Match Level M: Record matched on CASS_Address, CASS_Suite, CASS_ZIP, and the Soundex key for the last name field.
Match Levels for Name-Phone Match Group:
Match Level B: Record matched on telephone, last name field, and first name field.
Match Level C: Record matched on telephone, last name field, and the Soundex key for the first name field.
Match Level D: Record matched on telephone, the Soundex key for the last name field, and the first name field.
Match Level E: Record matched on telephone and the Soundex keys for the last name field, and the first name field.
Match Level F: Record matched on telephone and the last name field.
More on Matching
You can also modify the match level. To do so, filter match level IDs from your output file with a Filter tool with the data output from the tool. For example:
[CVMacroMatchMatchLevel] in (‘B’, ‘C’, ‘D’)
This results in only the records that matched at either levels B, C, or D being returned from the True side of the filter.