Evaluating a match rule

The Evaluate option allows you to test the results for your match rule. You can test any node you want in the match rule hierarchy.

To evaluate, perform these steps:

  1. In the match rule hierarchy, choose the node you want to test and click Evaluate.
    You see the Evaluate page. On this page, you can also view the profile statistics by clicking the Profile Statistics button located in the Match Rule panel. For more information, see Viewing Profile Statistics and Viewing Column Profile Statistics.
  2. In the Input panel, enter the test data in these ways:
    • To enter the test data manually:
      1. Enter a suspect record under the Suspect column and up to ten candidates under Candidate columns.
      2. Click Export to save the records to a file that you can import later instead of reentering the data manually.
    • To import the test data from a file:
      1. Click Import.
      2. Select the file that contains the sample records. Delimited files can be comma, pipe, or tab-delimited and should have a header record with header fields that match the field names shown under Candidates. For example, a sample header record for household input would be Name,AddressLine1,City,StateProvince.
  3. Select any of these method to evaluate your match rule:
    1. Current Rule: This runs the rule defined on the Match Rule panel. The results are displayed for one suspect and candidate pair at a time. To cycle through the results, select the arrows . Scores for fields and algorithms are displayed in a tree format similar to the match rule control.
      Note: If you make changes to the match rule and want to apply the changes to the stage's match rule, click Save on the top-right corner of the page.
    2. All Algorithms: This ignores the match rule and instead runs all algorithms against each field for suspect and candidate pairs. Results are displayed for one suspect and candidate pair at a time and can be cycled through using the arrows.
    3. Your results are displayed in the Scores panel on the right corner of the screen with these color codes:
      • Green: The rule resulted in a match
      • Gray: The rule was ignored
      • Purple: The results for individual algorithms within the rule