Filtering on a name that may be keyed different ways

[TinaLong]

Hi community, I have a question; I work with lists that I filter on physician names.  The data I receive is not always consistent.  For example, if I am filtering on Dr. John D. Smith, I can receive the name in a few different ways.  How can ensure my workflow outputs all Dr. John Smith entries?

Smith, John

Smith, John D

Smith MD, John

Smith MD, John D

Smithville, Susan

Smithville MD, Susan

Smith, John David

Smith, John

[MilindG]

@TinaLong Can you try using filter tool with !Contains([Name], 'John') and Contains([Name],'Smith')

[CoG]

Fuzzy Matching could be helpful although it may be more of a headache than its worth putting together a workflow like that. Here is another sample based on the patterns in the data provided (as a warning, any time you standardize names, be careful that you have not accidentally grouped unique individuals (e.g. Dr. John D Smith vs. Dr. John F Smith):

[TinaLong]

This is great.  Thank you. This worked.  I need to do some cleanup to the results though.

[TinaLong]

@CoG , this is also very helpful.  I see what you mean when it comes to the middle initials.  Can I do something like an IF THEN statement?  How would I get around getting John D. Smith and John T. Smith?

[CoG]

If you have used my workflow, you would just need to add logic that would capture a middle initial if one is present (based on data provided Middle initial is always at the end of name), but the difficulty is compounded in the event that both such physicians exist in the system, but all that comes through is "Smith, John MD" because now you have no idea who is being referred to.

If possible, this could be a good opportunity for a Process Improvement project to standardize data collection.

I've attached a sample that also capture Middle Name info from provided dataset.