Frequently Asked Questions

ExisEcho is the world's most flexible and sophisticated fuzzy logic based deduplication system. It helps you find similar but not identical records in your data, making it perfect for data cleanup, master data management, fraud detection, and more.

ExisEcho stands out with:

• Unmatched Flexibility: 15+ configurable matching options per column
• Superior Speed: Proprietary algorithms process millions of records in minutes
• Wide Data Source Support: Connect to 9+ data sources out of the box
• Advanced Features: Phonetic matching, synonym support, regex filtering, and weighted scoring

ExisEcho supports a wide range of data sources:

• Files: Microsoft Excel (.xlsx, .xls), CSV, Microsoft Access (.mdb, .accdb)
• Databases: SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite
• Cloud: Google Sheets
• Generic: Any ODBC-compatible data source

Need a different data source? Contact us and we'll work with you to add it.

Fuzzy matching is a technique that finds strings that are approximately equal rather than exactly equal. For example, "John Smith" and "Jon Smyth" would be identified as potential matches even though they're spelled differently. This is essential for finding duplicates in real-world data where typos, abbreviations, and variations are common.

Phonetic matching identifies words that sound similar regardless of spelling. This is especially useful for names where multiple spellings exist (Smith/Smyth, John/Jon, Catherine/Katherine). ExisEcho uses advanced phonetic algorithms to catch these variations that simple string comparison would miss.

ExisEcho allows you to define synonym dictionaries that treat different terms as equivalent:

• Names: Robert = Bob = Rob, William = Bill = Will
• Business: Corporation = Corp = Inc, Limited = Ltd
• Addresses: Street = St, Avenue = Ave, Road = Rd

You can customize the synonym list to match your specific industry or use case.

ExisEcho provides extensive configuration for each column:

• Character Matching: Require first N characters to match (or differ)
• Phonetic Match: Match words that sound alike
• Equate Synonyms: Treat synonymous terms as equivalent
• Remove Titles: Ignore Mr., Mrs., Dr., etc.
• Remove Punctuation: Strip punctuation before comparing
• Remove Articles: Ignore a, an, the
• Remove Custom Values: Your own list of words to ignore
• Remove Blanks: Eliminate all whitespace
• Remove Consecutive Blanks: Normalize multiple spaces
• Remove Numerics: Ignore numbers in text
• Remove Non-Numerics: Keep only numbers
• Case Sensitive: Require exact case matching
• Ignore Word Order: Match regardless of word sequence
• Column Weight: Assign importance (0.1 to 10.0)

You can assign a weight (0.1 to 10.0) to each column to indicate its importance in determining matches. For example, you might give a weight of 5.0 to the "Name" column and 1.0 to the "City" column, making name matches much more significant in the final similarity score. This allows you to tune matching based on your specific requirements.

The similarity score is a percentage (0-100%) indicating how similar two records are based on your configured matching options and column weights. You can set a threshold (e.g., 70%) to determine which record pairs are considered potential duplicates. Higher thresholds result in fewer but higher-confidence matches.

ExisEcho uses proprietary indexing technology that enables extremely fast matching. Typical performance:

• 10,000 records: seconds
• 100,000 records: under a minute
• 1,000,000 records: a few minutes

Actual performance depends on the number of columns being matched and the matching options selected.

• Windows 10 or Windows 11 (64-bit)
• .NET 8.0 Runtime (included in installer - no separate download needed)
• 4 GB RAM minimum (8 GB recommended for large datasets)
• 500 MB disk space

Yes! Each column supports regex (regular expression) filtering. You can extract specific patterns from your data before matching. For example, extract just the numeric portion of a phone number, or match only the first word of a company name. This powerful feature gives you precise control over what data is compared.

Yes! We offer a 7-day free trial with full feature access. No credit card required. Download the trial to get started.

• Unlimited record processing
• All data sources
• All matching features
• Priority email support
• Free updates for one year
• Export results to Excel

Yes! Enterprise licensing includes unlimited users, API access, custom integrations, dedicated support, on-premise deployment options, and custom data source development. Contact us for a custom quote.

All licensed users receive email support. Professional users get priority response times. Enterprise customers receive dedicated support with SLAs. Contact us for assistance.