Match Rules
Match rules define which fields must match for records to be grouped as duplicates. On the Match rules step, click Add match rule, pick a field, and choose a Matching type. Each rule row has an edit (pencil) and delete (X) icon.
All match rules in a scenario are ANDed — every rule must match for two records to group. Build your Word Mapping and Remove Words lists under Settings → Word Mapping and Removal before using those match types.
Common matching types
| Matching type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Exact | Values must be identical. |
| Fuzzy | Phonetic matching — good for names that sound alike. See Match Algorithms for how it works. |
| Word Mapping | Normalizes synonyms (e.g. "Corp" → "Corporation") before exact comparison. |
| Word Removal | Strips tokens like "Inc" or "LLC" before comparing. |
| Relaxed Phone | Ignores formatting differences in phone numbers. |
All matching types — full reference
| Matching type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Exact | Values must be identical. |
| Fuzzy | Phonetic matching (Soundex-style): values match when their 4-character codes are identical after normalization. |
| Numeric | Compares only the numeric characters in the values. |
| X-Letters | Matches on the first N letters (X through XXXXX-LetterMatch = first 1–5 letters). |
| Street Address | Address-aware comparison built for street fields. |
| Word Mapping (Clean Company Name) | Normalizes via Word Mapping list, then exact comparison. |
| Word Mapping Fuzzy (Clean Company Name) | Word Mapping normalization followed by fuzzy comparison. |
| Word Removal | Strips Remove Words list tokens before exact comparison. |
| Word Removal Fuzzy | Word removal followed by fuzzy comparison. |
| Alpha and Numeric characters only | Ignores punctuation and symbols; compares letters and digits only. |
| First Word only | Compares only the first word of each value. |
| Relaxed Phone | Phone-aware matching that ignores formatting differences. |
Cross-object match rules
For Cross-object scenarios, each rule maps a Lead field to an Account-Contact field with a matching type in between — for example, Lead Email ↔ Exact ↔ Contact Email.
Duplicate rule guard
You can't add the same field + matching type combination twice. If you do, the wizard blocks the save with: "Remove the duplicate match key '…' — the same field and match type is listed more than once."