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ianbruckner's avatar
ianbruckner
Frequent Visitor
4 years ago
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Merging with one exact match column and one fuzzy join column

Is it possitble to do a merge based on two columns... one that requires the first column selected to be an exact match, and on a second column with fuzzy join settings applied?   I'm trying to merg...
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  • ImkeF's avatar
    ImkeF
    4 years ago

    Hi ianbruckner ,
    I'm afraid, but the merge/join-condition can only be set on the join level and not on column-level.

     

    For inner joins, you can simply do them one after another, but for outer joins you have to expand the matched columns and then apply some logic afterwards (taking only those rows, where both expansions returned values).

LaasyaS's avatar
LaasyaS
Icon for Microsoft Employee rankMicrosoft Employee
3 years ago

Came across this thread when I had the same issue. 

 

Worked around by creating a separate intermediate mapping table. 
Group/Aggregate both the tables you are trying to compare by only 1 metric - the field that you are trying to fuzzy match. 
Then fuzzy match the 2 grouped tables to give you a conversion table. Play with the similarity etc as needed until you're satisfied with the result. 
Then join the conversion table to the first table to give you the field needed from the second table. 

 

Now you can do an exact match between the first and second table on both fields.