How does File Match decide what to send by itself?

"The software number matches, so send it" sounds sensible until you have seen two reads with one software number and a few hundred different bytes. So File Match works in steps, and only the first step can send anything. This post is the detail behind what File Match is.

In what order does it look?

The strongest match comes first. Your tuner sees the results on the job, in a panel called "Have we done this before?", and each one says what it does.

What counts as the very same file?

The portal takes a fingerprint of the whole file, called a hash. If one byte differs the fingerprint differs. A locked file is compared as it came in, and again after it is decrypted if your shop can do that, so the same content can still be found from a different tool. File Match and locked slave files has the rules.

What counts as the same work?

Each tuned file in your library is recorded with the work it does. The order has to be met in full. If a customer asks for Stage 1 and a gearbox change, a tuned file that only does Stage 1 is not a match for sending. It is still offered to your tuner, with a lower place on the list.

A tuned file that does more than was ordered is held too, unless you have told the portal that extra does not matter. You can name such extras in the settings, and the list starts empty. This is why naming the work on every tuned file matters so much.

Why does a matching number not send the file?

Because a software number names a calibration, not a file. Reads made with different tools or methods hold different amounts of memory, and two cars can carry different data in the same software. Software and hardware numbers goes through this. A number saves your tuner time. It should not put a file on a car by itself.

What can stop it even when everything matches?

Quite a lot, on purpose. A job that still owes money waits until it is paid. The tuned file might be missing from storage, or its bytes might have changed since it was filed. The customer's read might not have fully arrived. Your library might describe the same file in two different ways. When File Match holds a file back lists each one and what to do about it.

How do I try it without risk?

Its settings page, called AI Match, has four modes.

• Off does nothing.
• Confirm leaves every send to a person.
• Simulate records what it would have done and sends nothing.
• Live sends, and needs File Match on your package.

Start in Simulate. After a few days of real jobs, read the page's recent decisions and check you agree with each one. If you would not have sent a file it says it would send, the likely cause is a tuned file with the wrong work on it, and that is easy to fix before you go live.