CRM can check for duplicates when someone creates a new record or updates an existing record, a user goes from offline to online after using Microsoft Dynamics CRM for Outlook, or someone imports data into CRM from an external source, such as Excel.
After you decide when CRM should check for duplicates, the second task is to set up duplicate detection rules.
Duplicate detection rules define the patterns that CRM uses to match similar or identical records.
For example, contacts that have exactly the same e-mail address.
Each rule applies to a single entity or a pair of entities such as the Account and Contact entities, which are similar to each other because they both represent customers.
CRM includes simple duplicate-detection rules that you can use as examples to create rules that meet your organization’s needs.
To create a duplicate detection rule, choose which fields CRM should use to identify possible matches.
Like customizations and workflows, duplicate detection rules must be published before they can be used.
The third and final task is to set duplicate detection rules to run automatically at regular intervals. This task is optional, but recommended.
For large amounts of data, duplication detection can take some time. To ensure you’re not blocked from doing other things in CRM, duplicate detection runs in the background.
You can choose to receive e-mail notifications when a duplicate detection job is complete. As users enter data, CRM automatically checks for duplicates based on the criteria defined by the duplicate detection rules.
When CRM finds a potential duplicate, it prompts the user to decide what they want to do with it. If duplicate detection rules are defined for an entity, anyone can start a duplicate detection job manually.
Because even duplicate data may have some value, CRM never automatically deletes any records from your system. You or your users choose what to do with potential duplicates.
