Fuzzy matching issue

I'm having a very weird issue with fuzzy matching, which goes against everything I know about fuzzy matching.

I have narrowed down my issue to two entries that should be matching but aren't. I can get them to match through the method shown here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Fuzzy-Fiasco/m-p/325203#M59117 but it doesn't make sense that they aren't matching to begin with.

Can anybody help me understand why if I have:

Row ID	Word	Group
1	GST Expense	A
2	GST Expenses	B

I can't get the fuzzy match tool to return these two as matching? The configuration that makes most sense to me is:

Fuzzy Config.PNG

But this doesn't return a match. I'd like to understand a bit better why it doesn't.

Thanks!

Fuzzy Match

Accepted answers

CailinS

@Thableaus glad you found the training illuminating!

@pommycho In short, the fuzzy match process isn't running because the keys don't match exactly. Shorter keys are generally the answer in this scenario (super simplified advice, but it works in most cases). The key generation process is really intended to narrow down the number of pairs that have to be fuzzy matched (very processing intensive) and if it is filtering too many, then shorter keys allow more potential matches to pass through to fuzzy matching.

All comments

Thableaus

Hi @pommycho

At least one field must have the generate keys option checked. It's a mandatory filter in the Fuzzy Match process. I see yours is not checked.

Also, could you share configuration of the tool (not only the method you're using)?

Cheers,

pommycho

Hi @Thableaus

The process does run since I'm generating keys for the entire word (as shown in the dropdown). I don't want to generate keys for each word (the checkbox I think you mentioned). Since the workflow runs without issues, I'm assuming that my configuration is valid, and if I run it with more values, it does return some matches.

Here is the rest of the tool configuration:

Fuzzy Config2.PNG

And this is the result:

Fuzzy Result.PNG

My question is, why isn't the fuzzy matching tool using that "MatchKey" shown on the table and applying Levenshtein's Distance calculation to give me a match?

I hope this clarifies this question a bit.

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