If your account uses regions, Rhythm can read a contact’s or organization’s address and assign the correct region automatically. This article explains how Rhythm chooses the region, what happens when no rule matches, and where you see the result.
The Rules Are Tried in Order
Your administrator sets up region assignment in CRM configuration as an ordered list of rules. Each rule is one of four kinds. Rhythm checks the list from top to bottom and uses the first rule the address satisfies:
- Postal code rule — matches when the address’s postal code falls within one of the rule’s ranges.
- State rule — matches when the address’s state exactly matches one of the rule’s states.
- Country rule — matches when the address’s country matches one of the rule’s countries.
- Rest of the World rule — catches addresses only after Rhythm has tried every other rule and found no match. See below for details.
Because the first match wins, rule order matters. Put your most specific rules first, so a broad rule does not catch addresses that a more specific rule should handle.
How Each Kind of Rule Matches
Postal code rules compare the address’s postal code to each range as plain text, not as a number. This works well for ordinary codes, but some real-world addresses can miss a match. For example, a longer ZIP+4 code such as 02299-1234 can sort just past the end of a range like 02101-02299, even though 02299 by itself would match. A postal code entered without its leading digit can miss a match too. If an address near the edge of a range appears in the wrong region, check the postal code value. Rhythm accepts both 5-digit and ZIP+4 postal codes on the address, and it does not convert one format to the other. Because your addresses can have a mix of formats, a rule written for one format can miss the other. If your rules use plain 5-digit ranges but some addresses were imported with ZIP+4 postal codes, those records can be left without a region. Add a rule that also covers the ZIP+4 form, or normalize the imported postal codes to five digits before you rely on the rules.
Addresses brought in through an import can also skip the same validation a person sees when entering an address in the Console or a Portal profile. That can leave an imported address in a format your region rules do not expect, so check the address before you assume the rule is wrong.
State rules require an exact match, including letter case. This rarely causes problems because Rhythm normally converts a recognized state name to its standard two-letter code when you save a contact or organization. If your address data stores the state in another format, though, the address can fail to match a state rule.
Country rules match regardless of letter case. An address with no country at all, or a blank country, is treated as being in the United States. That means a country rule for “US” also catches every address with no country entered, including a foreign address where the country was left blank by mistake.
The Rest of the World rule works differently from the other three rule types. Rhythm does not test it in list order. Instead, Rhythm sets it aside while it checks the other rules, then uses it only when none of those rules match, no matter where you place it in the list. If you create more than one Rest of the World rule, Rhythm uses the last one in the list.
When Nothing Matches
If an address matches no rule and there is no Rest of the World rule to use, Rhythm leaves the record without a region and clears any region it already had. This keeps a record that moved outside every defined territory from staying in its old region indefinitely. It also means records can lose their region after a rule change if you remove the rule that used to catch them and do not replace it.
Tip
If records lose their region after you change your rules, add or check a Rest of the World rule to catch anything your more specific rules do not.
Rhythm does not check whether a rule’s named region still exists or is still active before assigning it. If a rule names an inactive region, Rhythm keeps assigning that region even though it no longer appears as a choice on forms. As a result, a record can have a region you can no longer choose by hand.
When Assignment Runs
Rhythm assigns a region when you create a contact or organization. It assigns the region again whenever the address used for region assignment changes later. A few things keep Rhythm from running the assignment when it does not need to:
- If automatic region assignment is switched off for your account, or switched off for that kind of record, contacts, organizations, or both, nothing happens.
- If the address used for region assignment has not actually changed, ignoring blank address fields, Rhythm does not recompute the region. This also keeps region assignment from triggering itself endlessly, because the save that records a new region does not count as an address change by itself. For the same reason, a mass update to some other field, such as a custom field unrelated to the address, does not recalculate the region.
- If Rhythm computes the same region the record already has, nothing is saved.
Assignment runs in the background after you save a record, so the region may take a few seconds to update after an address change. Rule changes can also take a few seconds to affect records saved around the same time, because your account’s rules are held briefly in memory instead of being read fresh on every change.
Where You See a Record's Region
A contact’s summary panel shows its current region, labeled Region:. Because assignment runs in the background, the panel can briefly show the previous region right after an address change. Reload the page if you need to confirm the new region.
Related
For how Rhythm chooses a contact’s preferred address, which affects the address region assignment reads, see Custom Address and Phone Values on Contacts and Organizations.