Semantic Type Matching Behavior

Semantic types can be used to group items or properties that are related. You can use semantic types to help match entities.

Each property has a role to play in assessing the likelihood that two records of information describe the same entity. Some of the properties identify the entities, for example a national identifier for a person or a license plate number for a vehicle, while others contribute additional information. It is important to assign at least one identifying property to an entity in order for it to match.

Entity and property semantic types

This table lists the entity semantic types with matching behavior, and the property semantic types that are considered to identify them.

Note: All of the recognized property semantic types can contribute to the match for a pair of entities but they contribute less than the semantic types associated with the entity type. For example, a phone number identifies a phone and can contribute to a person match.

The '\' symbol in the table is used to indicate a child semantic type.

An item in Bold indicates that the property semantic type is an identifying type, or a component of an identifying type. You must assign at least one identifying type to an item for matching to be performed. For example, to match items assigned the Location entity type, the items must have a Full Address, or part of an address such as a Street Name or City Name. To match items assigned the Phone entity type, the items must have a Phone Number, a Local Number, or an Area Code.

In the Culture column of the following table:

Neutral
The matching behavior of these entity types is culturally independent. For example, Bank Card or Phone entity types match regardless of your locale.
Partial
The matching behavior of these entity types has some US/UK specific behavior, but matching these types is still effective in all locales. For example, Motor Vehicle, Organization and Event.
US/UK
The matching behavior of these entity types depends on the US/UK English culture. For example, Person and Location entity types assume US/UK English culture for names and addresses. You can match these entity types outside of the US/UK English locale, however, the results may not be as expected.


Culture	Entity Types	Specific Property Semantic Types Used
Neutral	Bank Card	Card Number
	\Credit Card	Card Type
	\Debit Card
US/UK	Bank Account	Account Number
		Account Routing Number (US) Bank Sort Code (UK)
Partial	Motor Vehicle	VIN
	\Bus	Vehicle License Plate Number
	\Car	Vehicle Model
	\Police Car	Vehicle Color
	\Motorcycle	Vehicle Make
	\Truck	Vehicle Body Style
		Vehicle Year
Neutral	Event	Event Date & Time
	\Meeting	Event Date or Event Start Date
	\Crime	Event Time or Event Start Time
		Event Title
		Event End Date
		Event End Time
US/UK	Person	Natial Identifier
	\Law Enforcement Officer	Person Full Name
	\Offender	Person First Name
	\Person Alias	Person Middle Names
		Person Last Name
		Email Address
		Date of Birth
		Person Title
		Person Suffix
		Gender
Partial	Organization	Organization Name
	\Company
	\Bank
	\Court
	\Criminal Organization
	\Government Agency
	\Law Enforcement Agency
	\Organization Name Variation
Neutral	Phone	Phone Number
	\Cell Phone	Local Number
	\Fax Machine	Area Code
	\Pager	International Code
US/UK	Location	ZIP Code
	\ATM	Full Address
	\Mailing Address	Address Line 1
		Address Line 2
		Address Line 3
		Address Line 4
		Address Line 5
		Apartment Number
		Building Number/Name
		Street Name
		City Name
		State Name
		Post Office Box
		Country Name
		Country Code
Neutral	Website	Web Address
	\Web Page

Link semantic types

This table lists several link semantic types for which there is matching behavior.


Link Types	Description
Is Equivalent To (and any type that is derived from this link semantic type)	Links assigned to this link semantic type (or its children) are recognized by Smart Matching, and contribute positively to the overall score for the match.
Does Not Match	This link semantic type is assigned to a link when you use the Exclude feature of Find Matching Entities. Links assigned to this link semantic type are not recognized by Smart Matching. The link semantic type is used to indicate that the two entities are not representations of the same real-world object, even though there are similarities between the two entities.
Possible Match Between	This is the semantic type of the links added by Find Matching Entities when the user clicks Link. It means that the links are not then found again when Ignore Previously Linked is set. These are the semantic types found by Previously Linked Matches.
Ignored by Matching	You can assign this link semantic type to any of the links on a chart. This does not prevent two items from matching, it is simply that the link is ignored as a reason for matching. This semantic type is the parent of Possible Match Between.