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Normalization Criteria for Match Keys
As part of the process of creating match key values, matching rule field values are normalized. How a field value is normalized depends on several factors, including the matching method for that field as specified in the matching rule. In addition, some commonly used fields are normalized to optimize duplicate detection.
Required Editions
| Available in: Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic |
| Available in: Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer Editions |
| Field | Normalization Details | Applies to Standard and Custom Matching Rules? | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| City | Lowercases all characters. Removes non-alphabetical and non-numeric characters, including white spaces. Retains up to the first six characters. | Yes. But on custom matching rules, the matching method must be Fuzzy: City. | San Francisco = sanfra Rome = rome |
| Company | Expands abbreviations. Lowercases all characters. Removes suffixes, such as Corporation, Incorporated, Inc, Limited, and Ltd. Removes the words and, the, of. Removes special characters and accents. | Yes. But on custom matching rules, the matching method must be Fuzzy: Company. | IBM = international business machines Intel Corp. = intel |
| First Name | Replaces the first name with an alias, if applicable. Removes salutations, special characters, and accents. Keeps only the first letter of the first word, and lowercases this letter. | Yes. But on custom matching rules, the matching method must be Fuzzy: First Name. | Dr. Jane = j Mr. Bob= robert = r |
| Last Name | Removes special characters and suffixes. Replaces consecutive identical consonants with a single consonant. Lowercases the first letter. After normalization, the double metaphone algorithm is applied so that misspellings and spelling variants are accounted for. | Yes. But on custom matching rules, the matching method must be Fuzzy: Last Name. | O’Reilly, Jr. = oreily (without double metaphone) O’Reilly, Jr. = oreily = arl (with double metaphone) |
| Removes special characters, such as underscores and periods, from both parts of the email address. Retains the @ character. | No. Applies only to standard matching rules. | john.doe@us.salesforce.com = johndoe@salesforcecom | |
| Phone | Removes all non-alphabetical and non-numeric characters. For all U.S. phone numbers, converts alphabetical characters to numeric characters, and removes leading international code. Removes last four digits. | Yes. But on custom matching rules, the matching method must be Fuzzy: Phone. | 1-800-555-1234 = 800555 44 20 0540 0202 = 44200540 |
| Street Address | Removes all punctuation except hyphens. Removes common stop words, such as Avenue and Street. Takes the first five characters of the first two tokens. | Yes. But on custom matching rules, the matching method must be Fuzzy: Street Address. | 123 Ocean View Avenue = 123ocean 567 Fifty-fourth St. = 567fifty |
| Website | Removes the protocol (http), subdomain (www), and file path. Then takes only the last two or three tokens, depending on whether there are international designations. Retains the periods. | No. Applies only to standard matching rules. | http://www.us.salesforce.com/product = salesforce.com http://www.ox.ac.uk/ = ox.ac.uk |
