TOC: Transferring Interactions | Flagging Duplicates for Deletion | Un-flagging a Contact | Create a Query to Display Duplicate Contacts

Working with Duplicate Contacts

See also:

• About Interactions
• About User Roles
• Working with the Recycle Bin

Warning Do not flag contacts for deletion until you've transferred any interactions to the record you want to keep. Deleting a contact without transferring his or her Interactions will cause you to lose vital information.

Most often, duplicate contact records are those that have been unintentionally added multiple times for the same person. This can too easily happen if two departments within your organization interact with the same contact in two different ways. As well, duplicates can mistakenly be added during imports.

It is therefore possible to have a contact, Mike Jones for example, added 2, 3, or even 5 times. This can lead to data inaccuracies, such as sending several mailings to the same person. However, deleting a duplicate contact is not simply a matter of flagging that contact for deletion. It is likely that each instance of a contact record contains some information, such as an address or Interaction, that you need to consolidate so that your history with the contact remains intact.

Note: Just because a name is listed more than once does not mean that the contact is a duplicate. Different contacts may share the same name. In cases like this, check related data, such as the address or any identifying custom field or Interaction data to see if, in fact, the record is a duplicate.

Adding duplicate contacts When entering contacts, Metrix checks for individuals that may be duplicates and alerts the user that there is already be a contact with that name in the database. It does not, however, check for duplicate organizations and families.

Transferring Interactions

1. Press Contacts on the Contact Toolbar and select Find Duplicates.
   
   Figure: Finding potential duplicate contact records.

   The Working with Potential Duplicates form will be displayed. This form lists all of the potential duplicate contact records that Metrix has identified as well as the Interactions associated with each record.

   Note Metrix identifies duplicate records based on the spelling of the contact's name. If a duplicate record has been added with a different spelling, it will not be displayed in this form. Duplicates that are due to misspellings cannot be detected by Metrix and need to be checked manually.

   

   Figure: Viewing Potential Duplicate Records

   Before deleting the record, you will need to transfer the existing Interactions for that contact to the record that you are keeping. If you do not transfer the Interactions, they will be lost when the contact record is permanently removed from Metrix and you will lose this history with the contact.

2. Press Transfer Interactions to begin the process.
   The Transfer Interactions form will be displayed. By default, it will display the contact you've just selected in the Transfer Interactions From area. If you need to change the contact, press Select Contact from Directory. Most likely, you will be concerned with selecting a contact to whom you wish to make the transfer.
3. Select the contact's name and press Transfer Interactions.
   Note: You can opt to flag the record by clicking the After transfer, flag this contact for deletion checkbox.
   
   Figure: Transferring Interactions for a Duplicate Contact

   The Potential Duplicates form will be displayed. The duplicate contact will have no more associated Interactions.
   

   Figure: Viewing a Contact with Transferred Interactions

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Flagging Duplicates for Deletion

1. Select a duplicate contact whose interactions have been transferred and Press Flag for Delete.
   The Select Reason for Contact Deletion dialog will be displayed with Duplicate as the default reason. If you need to select another reason, use the drop-down list.
2. Press OK to mark the record for deletion.

The duplicate contact's name and information will appear in red text on the Potential Duplicates and Contact Overview forms.

Note: When a user flags a record to be deleted, it is not yet permanently deleted from the system, but will be marked as a record that is flagged for deletion. Only the Metrix Administrator can permanently delete a record using the Recycle Bin.

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Un-flagging a Contact

If you mark a contact for deletion and then realize that the record is not a duplicate or that the wrong record has been marked, you can easily un-mark, or un-flag, that record. If you wish to un-delete a record, you may also need to transfer Interactions back to that record.

1. Press Contacts on the Contact Toolbar and select Find Duplicates.

Any records that are marked for deletion will appear in red.

Transfer Interactions back to the contact that is flagged for deletion

1. Select the contact record that is not marked for deletion and press Transfer Interactions to access the Transfer Interactions form.
2. Select the contact to whom you wish to transfer back the Interactions in the Transfer Interactions To area.
   
   Figure: Selecting a Contact to Whom to Transfer the Interactions
3. Once the Interactions have been restored, press Flag for Delete to restore the contact.
4. Press Yes to confirm that you wish to remove the delete flag.

The record will appear in the Potential Duplicates form, no longer flagged for deletion. Repeat the steps in the above section if you now need to delete a different contact record.

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Create a Query to Display Duplicate Contacts

The following instructions are for creating an advanced query which displays the names of possible duplicate contacts.

1. Log into Metrix and go to the Query Manager.
2. Create an advanced query (not wizard query) and save it as "Duplicate Contacts" or whatever you want to call it.
3. When the query opens, click SQL View on the toolbar. This will display a pane at the bottom of the screen.
4. Copy and paste the following text into the pane (you can overwrite the text that's already there).

   SELECT TOP 100 PERCENT dbo.tblContacts.ContactID,
   	dbo.tblContacts.ContactRecordType,
   	dbo.tblContacts.fDelete AS FlaggedForDeletion,
   	dbo.tblContacts.NameFirst,
   	dbo.tblContacts.NameLast,
   	dbo.tblContacts.SortName, 
   	dbo.tblContacts.ContactName,
   	LTRIM(CASE WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Individual' THEN (NameFirst + ' ' + NameLast) 
   		WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Family' THEN dbo.tblContacts.ContactName WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Organization' THEN dbo.tblContacts.ContactName
   		ELSE 'nothing' END) AS BriefName,
   	dbo.tblContacts.AddBy,
   	dbo.tblContacts.AddDate,
   	dbo.tblContacts.AddTime,
   	dbo.tblContacts.ModBy, 
   	dbo.tblContacts.ModDate,
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.Org,
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.CityLine, 
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.Email,
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.Phone,
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.Fax,
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.AddressLine1, 
   	dbo.vwPCL_Address.AddressLine2,
   	dbo.vwContactsWithNumLogItems.NumberItems
   FROM dbo.tblContacts
   	LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.vwContactsWithNumLogItems ON dbo.tblContacts.ContactID = dbo.vwContactsWithNumLogItems.ContactID
   	LEFT OUTER JOIN dbo.vwPCL_Address ON dbo.tblContacts.ContactID = dbo.vwPCL_Address.ContactID
   WHERE(LTRIM(CASE WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Individual' THEN (NameFirst + ' ' + NameLast) 
   	WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Family' THEN dbo.tblContacts.ContactName WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Organization' THEN dbo.tblContacts.ContactName
   	ELSE 'nothing' END) IN
   		(SELECT LTRIM(CASE WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Individual' THEN (NameFirst + ' ' + NameLast) 
   		WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Family' THEN ContactName WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Organization' THEN ContactName ELSE 'nothing' END) AS BriefName
   		FROM [tblcontacts] AS t2
   GROUP BY LTRIM(CASE WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Individual' THEN (NameFirst + ' ' + NameLast) 
   	WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Family' THEN ContactName WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Organization' THEN ContactName ELSE 'nothing' END)
   HAVING COUNT(LTRIM(CASE WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Individual' THEN (NameFirst + ' ' + NameLast) 
   	WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Family' THEN ContactName WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Organization' THEN ContactName ELSE 'nothing' END)) > 1))
   ORDER BY LTRIM(CASE WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Individual' THEN (NameFirst + ' ' + NameLast) 
   	WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Family' THEN dbo.tblContacts.ContactName WHEN ContactRecordType = 'Organization' THEN dbo.tblContacts.ContactName
   	ELSE 'nothing' END)

5. Save the query.

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