Generating Match Keys for Preexisting Records

A match key is an identifier assigned to each record and used by the Spectrum™ Technology Platform deduplication process to find records that may be duplicates of each other. If you have records in your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system that were created before you began using Spectrum™ Technology Platform for deduplication, you must generate match keys for these existing records in order for them to be found by the deduplication process.

  1. Sign in to Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
  2. To go Settings > Pitney Bowes.
  3. Click Batch Jobs.
  4. Click New.
  5. In the Batch Job Name field, enter a name for this job. You can give the job any name you like.
  6. In the Entity Name field, select the type of records you want to validate.
  7. In the Saved View field, select the view containing the records you want to validate.
    Note: Batch processing only works for system views.
  8. In the Option field, choose either Match Key Generation (to just generate match keys) or Address Validation & Match Key Generation if you also want to validate addresses.
  9. In the Batch Size field, specify the number of records to include in a single batch when generating match keys for existing records. The default is 1,000.

    The batch size controls how many records are sent to the Spectrum™ Technology Platform at a time. For example, if are generating match keys for 50,000 records and you set the batch size to 1,000, the records would be divided into 50 batches. Each batch would be sent to Spectrum™ Technology Platform for processing, and when the batch is done the next batch would be sent, and so on. This setting can improve performance by limiting the number of records that Spectrum™ Technology Platform processes at a time.

    Tip: To see how the Batch Size setting affects performance, conduct tests using representative data from your Microsoft Dynamics CRM system.
  10. Click Save or Save & Close. The batch job is submitted for processing.

You can view the status of the job in the Active PB Batch Job view. When the process is finished, all active and inactive records will have match keys. You can verify that match keys have been assigned by going to the PB: Records Without Match Key view.

If a job fails, you can view the error in the Error Description column of the Active PB Batch Job view. You can also view errors by going to Settings > System Jobs. Look for the system job name PBCRMPlugin.Pligins.PostPBBatchJobCreate and click it. Expand Details and the error is displayed.