Joining on Similar names

Hello Community,

I'm looking for some thoughts on the following situation.

I have two datafiles that have different data. One is a Purchase request from, the other is a Purchase order report. There are a few key columns that are common to both that I wish to use as a pam to ensure that I do the mapping correctly. One of those columns is the "Name_of_Requester" column. But there is a problem....in the purchase request from, the requester uses his/her prefered name ("Jenn Smith" or "Jim West"), but in the Purshase order report, their names are their offical names ("Jennifer Smith" or "James West").

Is there a way in Alteryx that can detect these similar names?

Thanks in advance.

-Tesh.

Fuzzy Match

Accepted answers

prpatel

@FrederikE...thanks for your input. I'll have to play with it and see how it works out.

I was able to fix both reports to bring in company e-mails...so I'll use those and avoid the risks of missing records due to mis-match in names.

All comments

Matthew

is your list of requesters a manageable size?

if so, you could just build a mapping table

prpatel

@Matthew ...this is exactly my thinking. Can I build the mapping table within the workflow or does this need to be an excel sheet that I have to drag in all the time?

I was hoping to avoid this step and use some sort of Fuzzy Logic match to allow me to do this, but your solution works, but requires additional maintenance to keep up the map.

Thanks though for responding.

-Tesh.

FrederikE

Is the Fuzzy Match Tool not reliable enough for you? That should be able to pick up most/all of these Name-Nickname combinations.

prpatel

@FrederikE...thanks for your input. I'll have to play with it and see how it works out.

I was able to fix both reports to bring in company e-mails...so I'll use those and avoid the risks of missing records due to mis-match in names.

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