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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / How to merge multiple ...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

How to merge multiple records?

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Posted on by Community Member

Hello, I'm looking to merge a lot of our duplicate records.  I know there is the option to select two records and merge them however this is rather time consuming as we have a large number of records.  So what is the best way to merge them? I've been browsing the web for best part of the week and all I've come across are add-ons and utilities with high costs involved.  Surely, there must be a simple way to mass merge the records? We're currently on CRM 2011.  Many thanks.

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  • Verified answer
    Hosk Profile Picture
    Hosk on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    hmmm

    the advantage of merging data in CRM using the merge tool, is it goes through all the related entities and moves them to the merged field

    but because you have got so many duplicates I don't think using the GUI for all of the duplicates is going to work.

    Maybe you could do an advanced find on activities which have a  set regarding of type lead and possible set a workflow to update the lead entity with some kind of distinctive value.

    It maybe easier to write some custom code to do this

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    Many thanks mate, just one more question hopefully you would be able to help me with.  My problem with exporting the data is the notes & activities field, I have this horrible feeling that what if I merge the records and it doesn't contain the notes and activities field.  Would it be possible to determine which records in excel actually contain notes and activities so I know this is the lead to merge?

  • Suggested answer
    Hosk Profile Picture
    Hosk on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    The row would be called Status or state.

    if you cannot modify the status or state then I would change another value in the duplicates to something distinctive like 99999.

    then when you reimport the records, you will be able to do an advanced find and select all the records with the value 99999 and make them inactive or delete them

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    Hi Ben,

    I've been thinking about this, I think the best way would be is to export the data and merge it within excel and to reimport it, the only problem I have is that I have added all columns in a testview and I have exported it (I know it only lets me export 10000 so will look this later) but looking at the data that has been exported I cant see an active column?  I would like to test this on one record and if it works then will look at merging the records in excel.

  • Suggested answer
    Hosk Profile Picture
    Hosk on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    all you need to do is change the records you select and select less records in your initial select statement.

    also, it means that you have over 5000 duplicates, it would take you days to go through five thousand records to see what bits of each record you want to put in the master record.

    I don't think user the duplicate detection GUI in CRM is going to be the tool for you, if you have that many duplicates

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    Shame, just got the following error:--

    Bulk Detect Duplicate Limit Exceeded. The Bulk Duplicate Detection job cannot detect more than 5000 duplicates. Please review your duplicate rules or resolve existing duplicates and rerun the job

    I would have liked to first merge the leads where the email addresses are the same, and then run it again for first name, last name and company name and merge these. Just seems so difficult.

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    Hi, please ignore as I was looking at the wrong screen, i'm currently running the duplication detection for all leads.

  • Suggested answer
    Hosk Profile Picture
    Hosk on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    first I would try a few to make sure it works and isn't too difficult.

    What is your criteria for a Lead duplicate?

    if it's emails addresses, you select that and then you get to the select screen.  This is where you decide what records you want to run the duplicate detection job against.    If you want to run it agaisnt all the leads then just select all leads with a status of active

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    Thanks for your help, before I export all the records and look at that method I thought I would give the duplication detection a go, so as a start I have decided to search all leads where the email addresses are the same so I have got to the point of select record screen.  I have selected Leads in Look for and All Leads and Use saved view but i'm not sure what to select underneath it?  I have selected Email but it only gives me options of equal, contains etc?

  • Suggested answer
    Hosk Profile Picture
    Hosk on at
    RE: How to merge multiple records?

    The only way to merge records using CRM Gui is using the duplicate detection functionality.

    The other way would be to write some custom code or a plugin but this wouldn't be easy because you would have to write one for each entity you wanted to run duplicate detection on.

    Although thinking about it, you could export the data into excel, sort it so you had the duplicates next to each other.  merge the data and set the duplicates to be inactive.

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