Adding Crosswalks to an External Match Job

Learn how to add crosswalks to the records in an external match input file, so that source-based survivorship rules can calculate operational values before matching.

Before External Match compares an input record with entities in your tenant, it calculates the operational values (OVs) of the record's attributes with your tenant's survivorship rules. The records are not loaded into the tenant.

Some survivorship rules calculate an OV from the source system of each value. These rules need each input record to carry a crosswalk with a source type. Without one, the attribute has no OV, and match rules with useOvOnly set to true ignore it. For more information, see Survivorship Rules and Match Group Elements - Description and Configuration.

A crosswalk assigns a source type and a source record ID to an input record. Each crosswalk has a Type and a Value, and both are required. Add crosswalks when your survivorship rules depend on the source of a value. If your survivorship rules don't use the source system, you don't need crosswalks for external matching.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, confirm the following requirements:

You must have mapped the file columns to attributes and selected at least one match method on the Create new external match job page. For more information, see Mapping File Columns to Attributes.
The input file must have a column that uniquely identifies each record in its source system, such as a CRM record ID. You map this column to the crosswalk Value.
If the records in the file come from different sources, the file must have a column that contains the full source URI for each row, for example configuration/sources/CRM. A short source name such as CRM is not converted to a source URI.

Note: External Match supports only the Type and Value crosswalk fields. The advanced crosswalk settings of the Data Loader are not available, including Source table, External info, Create date, Update date, Delete date, and Data Provider or Contributor Provider. The Value must come from an input column. You can't enter a fixed value or generate one. For more information, see Add Crosswalks.

To add crosswalks to an external match job

On the Create new external match job page, select the Crosswalks tab next to Match methods.

If you reuse a mapping or change the input file, a crosswalk field that points to a column the file doesn't have is cleared. Select another column for that field. The other field and the crosswalk are kept.
Select ADD.
A crosswalk is displayed, for example Crosswalk 1.
Set the Type in one of the following ways:
1. To take the source from the input file, select the column header in the table, and then select the Type field.
  
  Each value in the column must be a full source URI, for example configuration/sources/CRM. While a column is mapped, the field shows the reminder The mapped column must hold a full source URI, such as configuration/sources/CRM.
2. If no column is mapped, select a source from the list under If no column is mapped, set crosswalk type to.
  
  The list shows the sources defined in your tenant by their short labels. The application saves the full source URI of the selected source with the mapping.
An input file has the following columns:

RecordID Source FirstName LastName City
1001 configuration/sources/CRM Claire Barker Manchester
1002 configuration/sources/OneKey John Smith Leeds

For Crosswalk 1, map the Type to the Source column and the Value to the RecordID column. If every record comes from the same source, don't map the Source column. Select that source from the Type list instead.
Select the header of the column that holds the record's identifier in the source system, and then select the Value field.

Important: Rows that have the same crosswalk are combined into one input record before matching. Map the Value to a column whose values are unique for each record. If every row has the same value, all rows are combined into a single record and the match results are incorrect. While no column is mapped, the Value field shows the reminder Map a column that identifies the record, so that every input row carries its own value.

A label above the column name in the table shows which crosswalk field the column is mapped to, for example Crosswalk 1 type or Crosswalk 1 value.
Optional: To add another crosswalk, select ADD and repeat steps 3 and 4.
Optional: To remove a crosswalk, select the Delete icon next to it.
Select SAVE.

If a crosswalk is missing its Type or its Value, the mapping isn't saved, and a message at the top of the page names the incomplete crosswalk, for example Crosswalk 2 needs both a type and a value. Please complete it or remove it before saving.

RecordID	Source	FirstName	LastName	City
1001	configuration/sources/CRM	Claire	Barker	Manchester
1002	configuration/sources/OneKey	John	Smith	Leeds

Result

The External Match application saves the crosswalks with the mapping. When the job runs, External Match uses the crosswalks to calculate the operational values of the input records with your tenant's survivorship rules before it matches them.

Verification steps

To confirm the crosswalks are saved, perform the following steps:

In the table, check that the columns mapped to the crosswalk Type and Value show a label, for example Crosswalk 1 type or Crosswalk 1 value.
Reopen the job definition and go to the Map step.
On the Crosswalks tab, check that each crosswalk shows its Type and Value.

Unify and manage your data

Adding Crosswalks to an External Match Job

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