How to Remove & Prevent Salesforce Duplicate Records
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 3:52 am
Having duplicate records in Salesforce is a problem for a few reasons. Firstly, it can bloat the database and cause you to reach your usage limits faster. Secondly, it skews the database and makes it unreliable. Lastly, thanks to the unreliable database, accurate reporting becomes nearly impossible.
The definition of a duplicate may vary by number phone cambodia business, so before you do anything make sure you are clear on what counts as a duplicate for you. For example, some organisations will allow one Lead to be created for every form submission which can result in duplicates that are then merged into one Contact record after following up. Other organisations, however, may only want one Lead record per individual.
Why might Salesforce duplicate records occur?
Unfortunately, there’s one little setting in Pardot that can create duplicate data and many headaches along with it.
This setting is called ‘Allow Multiple Prospects with Same Email Address’ or ‘AMPSEA’.
Back in 2016, AMPSEA was enabled by default for all new accounts and we’re still seeing complications from it to this day.
As the name suggests, AMPSEA makes it possible for a single prospect to exist multiple times in Pardot, and subsequently Salesforce due to the Salesforce connector. This means when a lead or contact is created in Salesforce, they have a duplicate prospect record.
The good news is, there is a way to uncover Salesforce duplicate records, and a way to remove them.
Setting up Duplicate Rules
Salesforce provides standard Duplicate Rules & Matching Rules within Setup that can be activated to provide basic duplicate detection across Account, Contacts, and Leads.
A matching rule compares field values to determine whether a record is similar enough to existing records to be considered a duplicate. For example, a matching rule can specify that if the Email and Phone values of two records match exactly, the records might be duplicates.
Your duplicate rules work together with your matching rules to prevent users from creating duplicate records. For example, a duplicate rule can block users from saving records that have been identified as possible duplicates, or simply alert users that they may be creating a duplicate, but allow them to save the record anyway.
Activate the standard rules to start tracking duplicate records across Accounts, Contacts & Leads. Custom rules can be set up to search for different criteria, or to set up rules across othe objects.
The definition of a duplicate may vary by number phone cambodia business, so before you do anything make sure you are clear on what counts as a duplicate for you. For example, some organisations will allow one Lead to be created for every form submission which can result in duplicates that are then merged into one Contact record after following up. Other organisations, however, may only want one Lead record per individual.
Why might Salesforce duplicate records occur?
Unfortunately, there’s one little setting in Pardot that can create duplicate data and many headaches along with it.
This setting is called ‘Allow Multiple Prospects with Same Email Address’ or ‘AMPSEA’.
Back in 2016, AMPSEA was enabled by default for all new accounts and we’re still seeing complications from it to this day.
As the name suggests, AMPSEA makes it possible for a single prospect to exist multiple times in Pardot, and subsequently Salesforce due to the Salesforce connector. This means when a lead or contact is created in Salesforce, they have a duplicate prospect record.
The good news is, there is a way to uncover Salesforce duplicate records, and a way to remove them.
Setting up Duplicate Rules
Salesforce provides standard Duplicate Rules & Matching Rules within Setup that can be activated to provide basic duplicate detection across Account, Contacts, and Leads.
A matching rule compares field values to determine whether a record is similar enough to existing records to be considered a duplicate. For example, a matching rule can specify that if the Email and Phone values of two records match exactly, the records might be duplicates.
Your duplicate rules work together with your matching rules to prevent users from creating duplicate records. For example, a duplicate rule can block users from saving records that have been identified as possible duplicates, or simply alert users that they may be creating a duplicate, but allow them to save the record anyway.
Activate the standard rules to start tracking duplicate records across Accounts, Contacts & Leads. Custom rules can be set up to search for different criteria, or to set up rules across othe objects.