Find and merge duplicate records

Find and merge duplicate records

Duplicate records pose a significant problem when you work with large volumes of data. It is important to keep your database free from duplicates to ensure your business runs efficiently. A database containing duplicate records doesn't offer easy access to the complete communication log with a customer, wastes sales reps' time, and generates inaccurate reports which will affect business decisions. Bigin provides you with a proactive solution by preventing duplicates from entering your database and a reactive solution by merging existing duplicate records.
 

Avoid duplicate records

The Do not allow duplicate values checkbox in the field's settings prevents duplicate records from being created. Once a field has this option enabled, the system will not allow another record to be created with the same field value. For example, you have enabled this option for the Email field in the Contacts module. Now, you cannot create a record in the Contacts module with an email address that is already associated with another contact. There cannot be two records with the same email address.
 
To avoid duplicate records 
  1. Log in to Bigin with admin privileges.
  2. Go to Settings and then Fields and select the desired module.
  3. Go to the desired field and click the edit icon.
  4. Select Do not allow duplicate values.
  5. Click Save. 
Note: The Do not allow duplicate values option is not available for the Activities module.

Find duplicate records

If you have not enabled the Do not allow duplicate values checkbox for the Contacts or Companies module there is a risk that your database might contain duplicates. Bigin lets you find duplicates of a record and merge them into one record. This is a two-step process. First, you find the duplicates based on one or more field values and second, you select one of the duplicate records to be the master record and merge the details from other records into it. The master record is the record that will be retained and other records will be permanently deleted after merging. A maximum of three records can be merged at a time.  
 
To find duplicate records
  1. Go to the Contacts or Companies module.
  2. Click the desired record.
  3. In the Details page, click the more icon and then click Find & Merge Duplicates.
  4. Specify the criteria for finding duplicate records in the Search Criteria section.
  5. Click Search.
    The matching records will be listed so you can identify duplicate records.
  6. In the Merge section, select the records you want to merge.
  7. Click Next.
  8. Select the record that you want to set as the Master Record.
  9. Click Select All if you want to take all the master record's values as the final values and merge the duplicates. Or click the radio buttons next to the fields for other records to take those values as final values and merge the duplicates.
  10. Click Merge.
    All selected values from the duplicate records will be merged with the master record. All the related records of the duplicates (Attachments, Notes, and Activities) will be merged with the master record. 

Note:
Find and merge lets you merge duplicate records into a single master record and delete the duplicate records. The record which is retained is considered the master record and the deleted records as duplicate records. Automation actions that are triggered on Edit will be executed when the master record is updated and automation actions that are triggered on Delete will be executed when the duplicate record is deleted. For instance, if you have a workflow rule that sends an email alert when a record is deleted then this workflow rule will be triggered when a duplicate record is deleted.

 

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