Basic matching example
The simplest matching task is probably checking if values or rows in one file (or dataset) exist in another. While basic, this is the foundation of all reconciliations and much data cleansing activities.
This example can provide data enrichment, per a vlookup or index/match spreadsheet formula, but with lookup values existing in any other dataset rather than accessible and maintained in a spreadsheet.
For example, if we have a column which is the unique value to lookup we can match it with another set of data (ie a database join, for the tech crowd).
In the data below we can see that the “charlie” customer does not have a tier value defined.
basic-customers.csv
| reference | customer |
|---|---|
| 567-A | alpha |
| 345-B | bronco |
| 123-C | charlie |
| 789-D | delta |
customer-tiers.csv
| customer | tier |
|---|---|
| alpha | premium |
| bronco | standard |
| delta | introductory |
If we match this, using customer as the common field, or key:
| reference | customer | tier | action coming soon |
|---|---|---|---|
| 567-A | alpha | premium | |
| 345-B | bronco | standard | |
| 123-C | charlie | ||
| 789-D | delta | introductory |
We show here that the tier value is missing for charlie. Note that we can configure per row notifications, acknowledgements and alerts. These can also be rules driven for automated workflows.
Each action can be configured to be local (just tracking the action value) or trigger external systems via emails, APIs or messaging platforms.
