The Backstory: You have adjusted your matching settings and want to know whether the changes will actually improve how activities connect to your accounts and opportunities. Rather than saving the changes blindly and waiting to see what happens across all your users, you use Matching Simulation to preview the results against real past activities first. This allows you to confirm your changes work as intended before they ever touch production.
Matching Simulation lets you preview how changes to matching settings in a Configuration Profile would affect your activities before you save them. It compares the original match for a set of past activities against the match they would receive under your current unsaved configuration, so you can see exactly what would change. This helps you confirm that your configuration updates are set up correctly without risking unexpected results across your organization.
Note: Running a matching simulation requires a Backstory administrator account.
Run a Matching Simulation
These steps walk you through previewing your matching configuration changes against past activities. The simulation compares each activity's original match to the match it would receive under your unsaved configuration, so you can confirm your changes before saving them. A configuration profile is the set of rules that controls how activities are matched to your Salesforce records.
Prerequisites: Make your configuration changes in the Matching tab before starting the simulation.
Log into Backstory as an administrator.
Click the grid icon in the top left corner.
Select Admin Panel.
In the left navigation menu under User Management, click Configuration Profiles.
Click the Configuration Profile you want to test.
Click the Matching tab.
Adjust your Matching Settings as desired. If you want to test your current matching configuration without making changes, skip this step.
Click the Test button in the bottom right corner.
Choose one of two options:
Test Specific Activities to select individual activities and see if they match differently with your changes.
Large Scale Test to simulate your changes on a large sample of recent activities and measure broader impact.
Test Specific Activities
Use this option when you want to see how your changes affect a handful of activities you choose. It compares each activity's original match to the match it would receive under your unsaved configuration.
After clicking the Test button, click Configure.
Use the search bar to find activities by a specific participant, account, or opportunity.
Use the matching dropdown to filter by matched or unmatched activities.
Use the date dropdown to narrow activities to a predefined range or a custom range with the calendar widget.
Click each activity you want to test to move it into the Baseline Set.
Click the Run Simulation button at the bottom of the list.
Review the Simulation Results panel, where activities highlighted in green would match differently under your new configuration and grey activities would keep the same match.
Run a Large Scale Test
Use this option when you want to understand the broader impact of your changes. It simulates your configuration against a large sample of recent activities and reports whether there are significant changes to the overall match rate, confidence, and other metrics.
After clicking the Test button, click Run.
Start the test to run your unsaved configuration against a large sample of recent activities.
Wait for the test to complete. This may take a few hours.
Check your email for the results, which are sent to you when the test is finished.
How the Sample Is Built
When you run this test, the system runs a large-scale simulation using the following sample:
Up to a 10K sample of activities is taken, using a 10-day lookback.
Only activities that were previously matched using the current configuration profile are included in the sample.
Both emails and meetings are included in the simulation.
What the Results Show
The results compare before and after values for match quality metrics, including:
Match rate and breakdown: the percentage of activities matched to Accounts, Opportunities, and other records, and the percentage that were unmatched.
Match changes: the percentage of activities that have a different match result under the new configuration, along with a breakdown of those activities.
The results help you see where the differences are when matches change:
Unchanged match with previous: matched before, same match now.
Unchanged no match with previous: did not match before, did not match now.
New match with previous: did not match before, matches now.
More specific match with previous: Account match before, Opportunity match now.
Different match with previous: matched before, a different match now (this does not include "More specific match with previous").
The email also includes a list of example activities for each change category, so you can review them and judge whether the new matches are better.
Frequently Asked Questions
What do the green and grey results mean?
Green activities are the ones that would match differently because of your configuration change. Grey activities would keep the exact same match they have now.
Does running a simulation change my live matching?
No. The simulation only previews results against your unsaved configuration. Your production matching is not affected until you save your changes.
Where do I find the simulation tool?
The Test button is located in the bottom right corner of the Matching tab within a configuration profile, next to the Reset and Save buttons.
How do I choose which activities to test?
Use the search bar, date filter, and matching dropdown to narrow the list, then click each activity to add it to the Baseline Set. You can test as many or as few activities as you like.
Why would I want to test before saving?
Configuration changes can affect matching across all users in your organization, so previewing the impact first helps you avoid unexpected results.
Need Help?
Contact your Customer Success Manager or support@backstory.ai.