Matching

In an ideal world, event registrants are already matched to their XID when they register. In AlumnIQ we make this possible in a few cases, and we try to make closing that loop afterward as easy as possible when it can't be done automatically.

Note: Semi-Auto-Match is also available for Giving and Membership, in their respective Customer Service screens, and functions identically.

Automatic Matching

When you send an email through the AlumnIQ Platform Mail Module, we include special parameters in all links in that message that identify the recipient. If you send your message to a system-generated ("Dynamic") list, then we already have their XID handy.

Adding all of these things together:

• If you use the IQ Platform Mail module

• ... To send an email to a system-generated list

• ... With a link to an event (landing page)

• ... And if the recipient clicks the link and registers for the event

• ... Then their registration will be automatically matched to their XID.

Manual Matching

There will always be registrations that need manual matching, though. We've created a couple of tools to help make that process as efficient and intuitive as possible.

In Events Customer Service, you can click each person's name in their reservation to edit their XID (among other things), but that would get tedious if you're cleaning up a whole event, or worse, multiple.

Semi-Automatic Matching

Instead, we've created a semi-automatic matching tool that is focused only on matching. It shows only unmatched records, and pulls all of the relevant information to front-and-center for you. To open the tool, navigate to Events > Customer Service and click the yellow "Match Registrations" button in the right sidebar.

By default, this screen shows unmatched registrants across all events. You can filter by event, and optionally exclude cancelled registrants. Next to each name is a "Find Match" button that shows a window with the person's name, email, and address, along with controls to search for an xid or mark as a non-constituent.

Inside that window, if you select the "Lookup/set XID" option, you'll be presented with a box to search for the match. It will be helpfully pre-filled with the person's name in the format "Last, First" and trigger a search. If no search results display, it's either because the name isn't spelled the same (e.g. "Steve" vs. "Stephen"), or because they are not in the warehouse. This search is powerful! If you use the format <Partial Last>, <Partial First>, it sees the comma and will search for warehouse records that match both the partial last and partial first. For example, "Smith, J" would show "John Smith", "Joshua Smith", and "James Smith" as search results.

After you select a search result, the XID will replace the name in the search box. Click the green "Set Match" button in the lower-right of the pop-up window to save the match.

This is still pretty manual, though. We can do better. And we have!

From the same screen listing unmatched registrants, there's a button near the top-right labeled, "Run automatch for all events." This button may be intimidating because it sounds final, but as with everything else in AlumnIQ, we will warn you and confirm before you do anything destructive or irreversible. Clicking on this button takes you to the Semi-AutoMatch screen. This is where the magic happens!

On this screen, we've identified some likely matches and suggest them as auto-matches for you to approve or deny.

• We'll show you them in a paginated list so that you don't have to bite off more than you feel like you can handle at once. In the upper right of the screen, you can control how many appear on a page.

• Each suggested match shows both the event registration details (top of the row pair), and the details from the warehouse (bottom of the row pair). Any details that are exact matches (not case-sensitive) are highlighted in green. Anything that is not an exact match is highlighted in yellow. Sometimes things are identical in spirit but not in text, for example, "USA" vs. "United States". Use your best judgement to make a decision for each suggestion.

• If you're not sure about a suggested match, mark it as "Ask again later." We'll suppress this suggestion for you and everyone else for 15 minutes.

• At the bottom of the screen is an "Accept Selected Matches" button. After making your selections for all rows on the page, click this button to save your preferences and move on to the next page.