Identity Reconciliation

This repository tackles an identity reconciliation problem for an e-commerce platform. Our goal is to identify and link customer purchases even when they use different contact information.

We store contact details in a relational database table named Contact. A customer can have multiple Contact rows linked together, with the oldest being the "primary" and the rest "secondary".

Hosted Version: The web service is available at

https://identity-reconciliation-2z7o.onrender.com/identify

Setup

1. Install dependencies:

   npm install

2. Database configuration:

   • Configure your database connection details in .env file.
   • Run migrations using npm run migrate.

3. Start the server:

   npm start

API Endpoint

The web service offers an endpoint /identify that accepts POST requests to identify a customer:

{
  "email": string? (optional),
  "phoneNumber": number? (optional)
}

The response is a JSON object with the following structure:

{
  "contact": {
    "primaryContatctId": number,
    "emails": string[],
    "phoneNumbers": string[],
    "secondaryContactIds": number[]
  }
}

Example:

Request:

{
  "email": "mcfly@hillvalley.edu",
  "phoneNumber": "123456"
}

Response:

{
  "contact": {
    "primaryContatctId": 1,
    "emails": ["lorraine@hillvalley.edu", "mcfly@hillvalley.edu"],
    "phoneNumbers": ["123456"],
    "secondaryContactIds": [23]
  }
}

How it Works

• The service searches for existing contacts matching the provided email or phoneNumber.
• If a match is found, it returns the consolidated contact details, including emails, phone numbers, and secondary contact IDs.
• If no match is found, a new "primary" contact is created.

Secondary Contacts:

• A secondary contact is created when new information (different email or phone number) is linked to an existing contact.

Primary Contact Demotion:

• A primary contact can become secondary if a newer contact with matching details is found.

Tech Stack:

• Database: PostgreSQL
• Backend: Node.js with TypeScript