DeDupeDeDupe|Guides

Create custom matching rules

Fine-tune detection with rules that ignore, normalize, equate, or exclude values.

Custom matching rules give you fine-grained control over how DeDupe compares fields — beyond the built-in strategies. Find them at Settings → Matching rules (available to admins and operators).

Rule categories

Rules fall into three behaviors:

  • Field modification — transform or ignore parts of a field before comparing.
  • Matching behavior — change how fields are matched and weighted.
  • Exclusion — stop certain records from being flagged at all.

The rule types

When you click Create Rule, you choose from seven types:

| Type | What it does | | --- | --- | | Ignore Field Part | Ignore parts of a field, e.g. middle names or titles | | Custom Field Match | Match on custom or non-standard Attio fields | | Field Transformation | Normalize values first (lowercase, trim, phone to E.164, normalize domain/email) | | Field Equivalence | Treat values as the same (e.g. "Inc." = "Incorporated") | | Field Weight Override | Change how much a field counts toward the score | | Match Threshold | Set a custom similarity threshold for a field | | Exclude Pattern | Exclude records matching a pattern from detection |

Create a rule

  1. Click Create Rule.
  2. Give it a name, pick the object type (Companies or People), and set a priority (lower runs first).
  3. Choose a rule type and fill in its configuration — the form adapts to the type you pick.
  4. Save with Create Rule.

Rules can be toggled active or inactive, and you can filter the list by object type.

Rule editor (beta)

There's also a simpler Rule editor (beta) under Settings for tuning the built-in rules directly — enabling or disabling each one and adjusting its threshold and weight per attribute. It's a lighter-weight alternative when you just want to nudge the defaults rather than author a new rule.

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