About the Master Index Match Engine

The Master Index Match Engine provides record matching capabilities for external applications, such as master index applications. It works best along with the Master Index Standardization Engine, which provides the preprocessing of data that is required for accurate matching, such as data parsing, data standardization, and phonetic encoding. Before records can be compared to evaluate the possibility of a match, the data contained in those records must be standardized and in certain cases phonetically encoded or parsed. Once the data is conditioned, the match engine determines a match weight for each field defined for matching. The match weight is based on the fields on which matching is performed and how the matching logic is configured. The composite weight is usually the sum of weights generated for all match fields in the records (but could also be a function of the match field weights). The composite weight indicates how closely two records match.