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Understanding the Master Index Standardization Engine

Address Data Processing Fields

When standardizing address data, not all fields in a record need to be processed by the Master Index Standardization Engine. The standardization engine only needs to process address fields that must be parsed, normalized, or phonetically converted. For a master index application, these fields are defined in mefa.xml and processing logic for each field is defined in the Standardization Engine node configuration files.

Address Standardized Fields

The Master Index Standardization Engine expects that street address data will be provided in a free-form text field containing several components that must be parsed. By default, the standardization engine is configured to parse these components and to normalize and phonetically encode the street name. You can specify additional fields for phonetic encoding.

If you specify the Address match type for any field in the wizard, a standardization structure for that field is defined in mefa.xml. The fields listed under Address Object Structure are automatically defined as the target fields. Each of these fields has several entries in the standardization structure. This is because different parsed components can be stored in the same field. For example, the house number, post office box number, and rural route identifier are all stored in the house number field. If you do not specify address fields for matching in the wizard but want to standardize the fields, you can create a standardization structure in mefa.xml using the Master Index Configuration Editor.

Address Object Structure

The address fields specified for standardization are parsed into several additional fields. If you specify the Address match type in the wizard, the following fields are automatically added to the object structure and database creation script.

You can add these fields manually if you do not specify a match type in the wizard.