How does the deduplication process for the CONTRACTOR_ID work?
Are contractor IDs deduplicated across different states?
We assign a unique contractor_ID to any contractor we see in our system, and work very hard to make sure this contractor_ID is deduplicated and a unique ID for the contractors that we collect from the permits. In our permits table, we include the contractor_ID whenever there is an associated contractor. If we believe a unique contractor with a unique contractor_ID is associated with a larger group or parent company (e.g. if we see a local plumber, and believe they are a local branch of a regional plumber), we will also associate that contractor_ID with a contractor group_ID. We do this per state, which means the same contractor ID will not appear across different states. For example, if ABC Plumbing Inc does business in both CA and AZ, it will have 2 unique contractor_IDs. However we are working on creating a national contractor ID, check our blog for latest announcements!
