This product demo provides an overview of the Multiple Blocking Keys feature introduced with the Winter ’25 clearMDM release.
For context, the clearMDM Matching algorithm has 3 phases;
The first phase groups records by a coarse-grained blocking key; records with a common key are then subject to key and deterministic rules which efficiently match or eliminate records based on significant identifiers (phase 2) and finally fine-grained fuzzy rules are applied which calculate field-by-field, record-level match scores to be evaluated against the configured match threshold (phase 3).
Historically, the selected key construct for the first phase (i.e. the blocking key) has required the use of fields with dense population across the dataset. For example, the Person First Name and Last Name and City or Company Name and Country.
Where different keys are required for different types of records in the same Salesforce object it is possible to have a different MDM configuration per Record Type. However, this approach can be undesirable where the introduction of new Record Types would be disruptive and records remain limited to a single key.
With the Winter ’25 release, clearMDM now supports Multiple Blocking Keys; up to 3 keys per record. This new approach allows records to be matched on any populated key.
For example, records from a web form with no address inputs can use a key based on name and email, whereas an ERP system integration can use a key based on name and address.
