The Match endpoint matches against all available PII fields in a particular record such as name, address, ZIP code, phone number, or email address.

The Match endpoint accepts plaintext (raw) PII and/or MD5-hashed email addresses as input data. Plaintext PII sent to the Match endpoint goes through data normalization and utilizes fuzzy matching during the matching process.

The PII is taken through a sequence of matching steps, the match cascade, until a match to a maintained AbiliTec ID is found. If a maintained AbiliTec ID isn't found after all match cascade steps are performed, a derived AbiliTec ID is returned.

Requesting More Than One AbiliTec ID

If a maintained AbiliTec ID is found during the match process and the limit parameter is set to a value greater than 1, the PII is taken through the match cascade again to see if another maintained AbiliTec ID is associated with any of the PII. For example, if the limit parameter is set to 3, the call will return up to 3 maintained AbiliTec IDs associated with the input PII. The first maintained AbiliTec ID might be associated with the Name/Address/Zip touchpoint, the second might be associated with the Name/Phone, and the third might be associated with the Name/Email.

When more than one maintained AbiliTec ID is returned, a Group document for the document class will be returned showing the AbiliTec ID for the best match first and then any additional AbiliTec IDs for additional matches up to a maximum of 10 (or the limit parameter that was set).

The limit parameter does not impact the requirements for a record to become a match; it only allows additional matches to be returned if they exist.

Each document inside the group document is counted as a transaction.

Match Cascades

When you use the match endpoint, you can select how the data is matched. Use the matchLevel parameter to select the match cascade type—default or strict.

Default match cascade

The default match cascade performs a name+zip match. If the matchLevel parameter is not included, the default match cascade is used.

Strict match cascade

Match Endpoint Rate Limits

The AbiliTec API supports passing up to 1000 links in the same batch call.