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Fuzzy Query

Fuzzy query is an advanced query feature that makes searching more intuitive and effective. It uses fuzzy logic to enhance your ability to locate information in the database.

Fuzzy query is useful in customer interaction situations for locating the correct customer information with imperfect information. For example, fuzzy query makes it possible to find matches even if the query entries are misspelled. As an example, in a query for a customer record for Stephen Night, you can enter Steven Knight and records for Stephen Night as well as similar entries like Steve Nite are returned.

Standard query methods can rule out rows due to lack of exact matches, whereas fuzzy query does not rule out rows that contain only some of the query specifications. The fuzzy query feature is most useful for queries on account, contact, and prospect names, street names, and so on.

Fuzzy query operates as follows:

1. A user enters a query from the Siebel application GUI.
2. Data quality inspects the query for wildcard characters, such as the * (asterisk). If any wildcards are present, data quality uses standard query functionality for that query, not fuzzy query functionality.
3. Data quality generates a Dedup Token from certain specified fields in the current query input, and uses the token to query the database for possible data matches. Data quality preserves query text in fields that the DeDuplication service does not evaluate for potential data matches. For more information about Dedup Tokens, see Identification of Candidate Records.
4. The remainder of the process depends on the number of records that are returned in the previous step:
   • If the preliminary query results contain more records than the value of the Fuzzy Query Max Results setting, then data quality calls the DeDuplication business service, which works with the third-party data matching engine to evaluate the possible matches. The query result returns the best available matches, up to the number of records specified by Fuzzy Query Max Results.
   • If the preliminary query results contain fewer records than the value of the Fuzzy Query Max Results setting, then data quality returns all of those records as the query result, sorted according to the default sort specification for the business component.

Fuzzy query is not enabled by default; to use fuzzy query you must enable it and ensure that other conditions are met as described in Enabling and Disabling Fuzzy Query.

Related Topic

Using Fuzzy Query