Entity resolution
The process of determining when different records refer to the same real-world entity, such as one customer or company represented several ways across systems.
In more detail
Entity resolution answers a deceptively hard question: do these records describe the same thing? The same company appears as Acme Inc, Acme Incorporated, and ACME across three systems; the same person shows up with two email addresses. Resolving them means recognizing that the variations point to one underlying entity despite the differences.
It is hard because real data is inconsistent, incomplete, and full of near-duplicates that are not quite identical. Matching too aggressively merges distinct entities; matching too cautiously leaves duplicates. Good entity resolution weighs multiple attributes and handles ambiguity rather than relying on any single field to match exactly.
Where this shows up at Ceven
Ceven can perform entity resolution within workflows, using AI steps to judge whether records refer to the same entity across the connected systems, which rigid exact-match rules handle poorly. It writes the resolved links back into the customer's own systems rather than becoming the master store, with the matching decisions recorded in the audit trail.