Selecting a Matching Strategy

The first step in configuring a match is choosing a matching strategy. Your strategy determines how MatchLogic compares records across your imported datasources. On the Match Configuration page, you will see three strategy cards. Click a card to select it.

Match Configuration page showing three strategy cards: Find All Duplicates, Cross-File Matches, and Deduplicate Each File, with the selected card highlighted in purple with a checkmark

Close-up of a selected strategy card showing the purple border highlight and checkmark icon confirming the active selection

Find All Duplicates

This strategy compares every record against all other records, both within each datasource and across different datasources. It is the most comprehensive option and is ideal when you want a complete picture of all potential duplicates in your data, regardless of which file they came from.

Choose this strategy when:

You have multiple datasources that may contain overlapping records
You also want to find duplicates within individual files
You need the most thorough duplicate detection possible

Cross-File Matches

This strategy only compares records between different datasources. Records within the same datasource are never compared to each other. Use this when each individual file is already deduplicated and you only need to find records that appear in more than one source.

Choose this strategy when:

Each datasource is already clean internally
You want to link records across systems (for example, CRM records against a marketing list)
You want to reduce processing time by skipping within-file comparisons

Deduplicate Each File

This strategy compares records only within each datasource independently. No cross-file comparisons are performed. Each datasource is treated as its own isolated matching job.

Choose this strategy when:

You want to clean individual files before merging them
The datasources contain unrelated data that should not be compared
You need to find internal duplicates within each source separately

How Selection Works

Click on a strategy card to select it. The selected card displays a checkmark icon and a highlighted border to confirm your choice. Your strategy selection directly controls which datasource pair combinations appear in the configuration table below.

Tip

If you are unsure which strategy to use, start with Find All Duplicates. You can always refine your approach by disabling specific pairs in the next step. See #configuring-datasource-pairs for details.

Important

Changing your strategy after configuring pairs will reset the pair selections. Make sure you choose the right strategy before spending time on pair-level configuration.

What Happens Next

Once you select a strategy, MatchLogic populates the datasource pairs table with the relevant combinations. For Find All Duplicates, you will see both within-file and cross-file pairs. For Cross-File Matches, only cross-file pairs appear. For Deduplicate Each File, only within-file pairs are listed. From there, you can fine-tune which specific pairs to include before proceeding to #what-are-match-definitions.