Keep Your Data Clean With CRM Duplicate Detection

Good data, especially good Sales data adds great value to your company because it leads directly to growing income, and therefore, greater success for your company.

Bad data, on the other hand…has the opposite effect.

The most common form of bad data is duplicated records. Duplicated Accounts, Contacts, and Leads represent some of the most troublesome records that can worm their way into your data, leading to confusion and lost sales. And, without your attention, they can do this with surprising ease and rapidity.

Creating and maintaining good data takes some effort and diligence. Creating bad data takes no effort at all; only a little lack of attention.

So, isn’t a little diligence to protect your valuable data asset worth the effort? And isn’t stopping the bad data before it starts a lot easier than trying to clean it up afterward?

If your answer is “yes”, then you’ll be interested in learning how to use Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s duplicate detection rules feature to help you. It’s easy to get started, flexible, and a great way to stop a lot of bad data from finding its way into your system.

How to do it:

In this example, we will learn the basics for creating a new duplicate detection rule for Contacts

Begin with a plan. Think about how duplicate Contacts might be introduced into your CRM. Do your users add in new Contacts? Are Contacts imported from other sources such as spreadsheets, web sites, or ERP systems?

Next, consider the data you collect for your Contacts. How can you use it to figure out if a Contact record already exists so that it isn’t added again and duplicated? As we’ll see, CRM’s flexibility gives you several choices when setting up your duplicate detection rules.

On the Navigation Bar, begin with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and click on Settings

After the Settings page has loaded, hover over the Settings link and then click on Data Management

Next, click on the Duplicate Detection Settings heading

The Duplicate Detection Settings screen lets you decide when CRM should apply your duplicate detection rules. Based upon your planning, check the boxes to set when you want your duplicate detection rules to be in force. Then, click OK

You will be returned to the Data Management screen where, for the next step, click the Duplicate Detection Rules heading.

It is possible that the Duplicate Detection Rules List View will contain previously created duplicate detection rules. If so, use the Entity Type selection drop down list to switch to the List View of any Contact rules.

Now, it’s time to create your new duplicate detection rule. Click on the “New” button in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

Based on your planning, enter a Name and Description for your new duplicate detection rule. Because, in this example, we are creating a rule for Contacts, choose Contact for both the Base Record and Matching Record Types.

Note that other options will now appear. Options (in this example) to choose if the rule should be Case Sensitive, whether inactive records should be excluded and, at the bottom of the screen, an area in which to define your new rule.

Your new rule now contains the basics it needs to go into action and help maintain a clean, accurate database of Contacts. In this example, anytime a new Contact is about to be introduced into your CRM with the same First and Last Name, the user will receive a warning with the opportunity to either save, or ignore the new record.

Keeping bad data from being created in the first place will save you a lot of headaches and cleanup work in the future. With some planning, the use of duplicate detection rules along with regular monitoring of your data, will help you maintain a clean and valuable CRM database.

Remember: This tip covers only the basics of CRM’s duplicate detection feature. The purpose is to introduce you to the value of the feature and how to set it up. Once you get started, there is more you can learn that will help you to get the most out of Microsoft Dynamics CRM’s duplicate detection feature.

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