🔍 How does Data Field Weighting in Sanctions Match Calculations work?
When Strise screens for Sanctions, we compare a Strise entity with entries from selected Sanctions lists (like Trapets or Dow Jones). To help you fine-tune how strict or lenient this process is, we let you set data field weighting—a simple way to control how much each piece of data (like name or birth year) contributes to the overall match score.
This guide explains how weighting works and how it impacts the categorization of hits in the Sanctions dispositioning view, which you can find under Sanctions either in the Side panel (which opens when you click any entity in Strise) or in Review (on the left main menu). To open the Sanctions dispositioning view, click on Verify next to a name (in the Sanctions part of any Entity page).
🧮 What is data field weighting?
Data field weighting lets you decide how important different fields are when calculating the total match percentage between a Strise entity and a suggested entity from a Sanctions list.
You can assign a weight from 0 to 100 to each of the following fields:
Name
Birth date
Birth year
Country
The higher the number, the more that field contributes to the final match percentage. A value of 0 means the field is ignored. A value of 100 means it has maximum influence.
⚖️ Example setup
Suppose you set up your weighting like this:
Field | Weight |
Name | 80 |
Birth date | 100 |
Birth year | 100 |
Country | 50 |
These weights are normalized to create a combined score. Here's how it works in practice:
Example Sanctions hit:
Name: 100% match
Birth date: 100% match
Birth year: 100% match
Country: 100% match
The system calculates the match percentage like this:
Total=(0.8×100+1.0×100+1.0×100+0.5×100)/(0.8+1.0+1.0+0.5)=(330)/(3.3)=100%
If this 100% match is above the threshold you've defined (e.g., 80%), it will be automatically placed in the "Suggested true" category.
🧠 What about exact matches on national ID?
If a hit contains a national unique ID, it will be considered a 100% match regardless of your weight settings. These override the fuzzy match calculation and are always shown as Confirmed true for your review.
📊 Threshold: Suggested true vs. Suggested false
You also set a "Suggested true match threshold" - typically between 50-100%.
Matches at or above this threshold will be auto-categorized as Suggested true.
Matches below it will be placed under Suggested false.
This makes your review more efficient by highlighting only the most relevant matches based on how strict your settings are.
✅ Tips for setting weights
If name variations are common in your data, you might want to give more weight to birth date and year.
For global companies working across borders, country might be less critical—but still helpful for narrowing down matches.
Start with default suggestions and adjust based on what gives your team the best signal-to-noise ratio.
🖼️ Where do I see this in action?
In the Sanctions dispositioning window (which you find by pressing Verify next to a name), you'll see how each match was calculated. Just hover over the match percentage to reveal:
Field-by-field breakdown
How the final score was computed
Whether it passed the suggested threshold
This helps you and your team understand exactly why a match was categorized the way it was.
Still have questions? Contact support over email at [email protected] or reach out to us in the chat bubble in the down right corner in the app.