Feature Availability

Vtiger Editions: One Pilot | One Growth | One Professional | One Enterprise | One AI

Introduction

Duplicate records in a module are those that have the same name and information as one or more records in the same module. Find Duplicates helps you identify duplicate records in a module. By eliminating duplicate records, you can eliminate duplicate information as well as save space.
Duplicate records are grouped using duplicate field names. You can merge at least two and a maximum of three records in the same group.

Identifying Duplicate Records

Follow these steps to identify duplicate records:

1. Log in to the CRM. 
2. Click the Main Menu.
3. Go to Tools.
4. Select Find Duplicates.
5. Choose the module where you want to search for duplicate records from the Select Module drop-down.
6. Select the list under which you want to search for duplicates from the Select List drop-down.
7. Select the fields using which the CRM looks for duplicates from the Select Matching field.
8. Enable Ignore empty values to avoid searching for duplicates on empty field names.
9. Enable Check closed records also for duplicates to include records in closed states in the duplicate search.
10. Click Search.

The screen displays a list of duplicate records. 

• Select one or more duplicate records to delete them by clicking Delete
• Select at least two duplicate records to merge them into one by clicking Merge

While Find Duplicates allows you to identify existing duplicate records, the Duplicate Prevention setting prevents the creation of duplicate records. By setting up a duplicate prevention check, you can prevent users and external applications from creating duplicate records in a module.
Follow these steps to set up duplicate prevention for a module:

1. Log in to the CRM. 
2. Click the User Menu in the top-right corner of the CRM screen.
3. Click Settings.
4. Select Module Layouts & Fields under Module Management.
5. Select the module on which you want to set up duplicate prevention from the Select Module drop-down.
6. Click the Duplicate Prevention tab.
7. Turn on the toggle button under Enable duplicate check.
8. Select the fields (maximum three) based on which you want to run the duplicate check. For example, if you select Deal Name, users will not be able to create a new deal with the same name as an existing deal.
9. Enable either of the following settings:
   1. Consider as duplicate only if all of the unique fields match - A record is considered a duplicate if all the fields defined in the previous step match
   2. Consider as duplicate if at least one of the unique fields match - A record is considered a duplicate if at least one field defined in the previous step matches
10. Enable Check closed records also for duplicates to run the duplicate check on closed records. Disable it to ignore closed records while checking for duplicates.
11. Enable Ignore blank values to avoid searching for duplicates on empty field names. Disable it otherwise. 
12. Choose an action to take if a duplicate record is found while syncing with an external application.
    1. Prefer the latest record - Most recently modified record will be retained
    2. Prefer internal record -Record existing in the CRM will be retained
    3. Prefer external record - Record in the external application will be copied and retained
13. Click Save.

• You can set up duplicate prevention only if you are an Admin user.
• Step 11 does not apply to the following modules: Deals, Tasks, FAQs, Price Books, Internal Tickets, Quotes, Purchase Orders, Campaigns, Service Contracts, Assets, Project Milestones, Projects, Cases, Work Orders, Credit Notes, and Documents.

To learn more about duplicate prevention, click here.