How to compare SIMILARITY not exact match in a string of text/description/summary

Tiffany Castro

I am trying to create a formula that compares a New Intake Form's description/summary to completed and Archived Intake Work Form's to see if this is a project similar to what has already been worked on in the last 5 years. I am not looking for an exact match, but something similar enough to pull the Old "Intake Request ID" so we can determine if this is similar enough to avoid rework.

This formula I use to pull names that match a criteria so I am thinking it would be similar or maybe an Index/Collect instead.

=JOIN(COLLECT({Participant Email}, {Module}, Module@row, {Modules}, Modules@row, {Start Date}, [Finish Date]@row, {Control ID#}, [Control ID #]@row), CHAR(10))

I know this might be more complicated because I am comparing a string of text for similarities instead of exact matches but I figured I'd throw it out there.

Any ideas on how to do this would be EXTRMELY HELPFUL!!

Paul Newcome

Can you provide some examples as to what would flag as similar and why?

Tiffany Castro

We could get a new request that says "Runway Incursions request to be included into training" and I want to be able to compare it to similar requests. When I do Ctrl+F, I can find other requests that have the words "runway incursions" but I want to be able to pull everything that is similar. That is a very straight forward example and a lot of our summary descriptions are long winded and much more complex.

Paul Newcome

Would you be able to narrow each request down to a few key words?

My suggestion would be to create a report and then adjust the filter on the report so that it shows rows that contain "runway incursions" or whatever else you are looking for. In report filters, you can also include an OR argument to show rows that contain "runway incursions" or contain "something else".