web
You’re offline. This is a read only version of the page.
close
Skip to main content

Notifications

Announcements

No record found.

News and Announcements icon
Community site session details

Community site session details

Session Id :
Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived) / How to prevent duplica...
Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

How to prevent duplicate Contacts, Accounts, in CRM 4.0

(0) ShareShare
ReportReport
Posted on by Jon Philip 125

Is there any way out of the box to prevent a user from entering a duplicate Contact or Account in CRM 4.0?  We currently have duplicate detection rules set which warn the users that a duplicate exists, but they just ignoring this warning and are creating duplicates anyway!  We want to make CRM not allow this.  thanks... jon

*This post is locked for comments

I have the same question (0)
  • alf Profile Picture
    alf 17,915 on at

    Hi Jon,

    You could, but would require a plug-in.  With a plug-in you could check for duplicates, then if found, abort the save.  However, I think the out of the box duplicate detection + chatting with any users that still create duplicates should suffice for a relatively clean system.

  • Community Member Profile Picture
    Community Member on at

    Hi Jon,

    Alex is absolutely right.  A plug-in is the only way to prevent a duplicate from being entered.  This is a good thing though as defining a duplicate is a complex challenge that really does need to include some human insight.  

    For example, how would you handle a scenario where a married couple works at the same office and the wife likes to be addressed by her husband’s name (I.E. Mrs. John Smith)?  You would need two records to capture the couples information but must likely your duplicate detection would remove the second record as the first and last name match.  Now you could always get more complex and include the e-mail address, phone number, or some other criteria.  However, you will find that developing an affective plug-in that handles duplicate detection a hard thing to accomplish regardless of how many filtering criteria you include.  Let me provide you with a few more challenges that you need about addressing before having a plug-in developed.

    How would you handle contacts from foreign countries such as China, Japan, or South Korea?  Is the first Tom Woo the same as the second Tom Woo or the third?  Without evaluating the contacts names in their local languages and/or including additional criteria you may never know.

    How would you handle misspelling?  Again you need to take into account including additional filtering criteria but that can only take you so far as e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and employers change.  You would not want to create a new record for an existing contact if the contact’s information changed.  This would have the consequence of having multiple records for a unique individual, which would cause your company’s data for the contact to be fractured between multiple records.

    I have found the best way to address this is to ensure that the user base is educated about the duplicate detection feature and that your power users are diligent about policing the data.  One of the things you can do to help your power users is to setup scheduling of the duplicate detection report to run on a regular basis.  Then provide instructions about how to view the report and take action to correct any issues.

  • Jeremy Winchell Profile Picture
    Jeremy Winchell 1,165 on at

    Outside of the duplicate detection, you would have to write a plug-in that would perform the same functionality as the duplicate detection but then prevent the user from creating the Contact.  This would be a PreCreate plug-in.

  • AFTAB HUSSAIN Profile Picture
    AFTAB HUSSAIN on at

    Hello Jon,

    The only way to stop the users from creating a duplicate records is by setting the duplicate detection rule on a particular entity. So as to alert the user if the same contact/record exist.

    If we need to forcefully prevent users from creating duplicate records then we must take the help of plugins.

    I agree with Eric an Alex without using plugin we won't be able to prevent the users to enter the duplicate record.

    For more information refer

    social.msdn.microsoft.com/.../prevent-create-duplicated-contact-in-dynamics-crm-2011

    I hope this helps.

    Thank You !

Under review

Thank you for your reply! To ensure a great experience for everyone, your content is awaiting approval by our Community Managers. Please check back later.

Helpful resources

Quick Links

Responsible AI policies

As AI tools become more common, we’re introducing a Responsible AI Use…

Neeraj Kumar – Community Spotlight

We are honored to recognize Neeraj Kumar as our Community Spotlight honoree for…

Congratulations to the November Top 10 Community Leaders!

These are the community rock stars!

Leaderboard > 🔒一 Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Archived)

#1
SA-08121319-0 Profile Picture

SA-08121319-0 4

#1
Calum MacFarlane Profile Picture

Calum MacFarlane 4

#3
Alex Fun Wei Jie Profile Picture

Alex Fun Wei Jie 2

Last 30 days Overall leaderboard

Featured topics

Product updates

Dynamics 365 release plans