Duplicate Management - Improve Data Quality in Salesforce

Introduction

Duplicate records are a common data challenge in Salesforce, arising from a variety of sources such as manual data entry errors, mergers and acquisitions, data imports, system integrations, and more. These duplicates can compromise data accuracy, create confusion and clutter in Salesforce.

ActivePrime CleanData is specifically designed to address seven key dimensions of data quality in Salesforce. In this article, we’ll focus on the issue of duplicate records and explore how ActivePrime CleanData exceeds the capabilities of native Salesforce tools to provide a more effective solution for your organization.

What Causes Duplicate Records in Salesforce?

Duplicate records can get into Salesforce from various sources. Listed below are some of the common sources.

Manual Data Entry: When users input data without proper validation, they may accidentally create duplicate records, especially when the same data is entered by different team members at different times.

Mergers & Acquisitions: When companies merge or acquire new businesses, existing customer or prospect data might be imported into Salesforce, often leading to duplicates.

Data Imports: Importing large datasets from external systems without proper de-duplication checks can result in duplicate records. For example, leads from multiple sources.

System Integrations: Integrating Salesforce with other systems (like ERPs or marketing automation platforms) can inadvertently create duplicates if those systems don't have robust de-duplication mechanisms.

Other Sources: Other sources, such as third-party apps or inconsistent data entry formats, can also contribute to duplicate records.

The Challenges with Native Salesforce Duplicate Record Management

Salesforce provides native duplicate record management capabilities but there are limitations. Some of the key limitations include:

• Finding and merging duplicate records cannot be done in mass and automatically, particularly with large Salesforce orgs with millions of records.

• Can only merge 3 duplicate records at a time and is extremely time consuming.

• Native duplicate detection offers basic matching algorithms, limited support for standard objects, and lacks robust cross-object capabilities to detect complex, hard-to-find duplicates.

ActivePrime CleanData

ActivePrime CleanData was designed to overcome the limitations of the native Salesforce data quality capabilities.

1. Preventing Duplicate Records with CleanData

Similar to Salesforce, CleanData helps identify and prevent duplicate records at the point of entry. However, CleanData offers a more intuitive user interface, reducing the number of clicks required to identify potential duplicates and their match scores. ActivePrime’s CleanData Search Before Create feature proactively checks for existing records as users create new ones, ensuring that duplicates are caught early. This automatic search minimizes the risk of duplicate entries, keeping your Salesforce data accurate and clutter-free. By preventing duplicates at the point of entry, CleanData saves time and resources that would otherwise be spent managing duplicates. Maintaining a single, accurate version of each record enhances the overall quality and reliability of your Salesforce data, ultimately improving the customer experience.

2. Identifying Duplicate Records:

Unlike Salesforce, CleanData works seamlessly in the background, automatically detecting and grouping duplicate records into duplicate sets for efficient management. CleanData can handle large volumes of data without impacting your Salesforce users.

With CleanData, you can easily define custom rules for both standard and custom Salesforce objects with zero-code. The platform offers flexibility with various match methods, including Smart Fuzzy Match, Starts With, and Exact Match, allowing your organization to tailor the matching process to your specific needs. Additionally, CleanData provides powerful Cross-Object Matching, enabling the detection of duplicates across multiple objects to find hidden duplicates. This capability further enhances your organization’s ability to maintain high-quality, reliable data across your Salesforce CRM.

3. Resolving Duplicate Records:

ActivePrime CleanData makes it easy for your Data Steward to review and resolve duplicate records in bulk (more than three duplicates at a time). The platform provides clear recommendations for each duplicate set, enabling your Data Steward to make informed decisions before merging the records and their related records. Alternatively, duplicate sets can be assigned to the record owners for resolution.

CleanData’s Auto-Merge feature further streamlines the process by automatically merging duplicate records with high confidence scores, eliminating the need for manual intervention. This saves time and resources, helping your organization stay on top of duplicate records and maintain superior data quality in Salesforce.

4. Importing Data:

ActivePrime CleanData’s import feature simplifies the process of importing data from CSV files. It automatically matches records in the CSV against your Salesforce records to detect and prevent duplicates before they are imported. After the import, CleanData continuously monitors your records, identifying any potential duplicates that may arise and ensuring they are merged as needed. This always-on monitoring helps maintain high data quality in Salesforce with minimal manual effort.

Conclusion

Duplicate records in Salesforce present a significant challenge, but with ActivePrime CleanData, your organization can tackle this issue head-on. CleanData offers advanced capabilities that surpass the native Salesforce tools, allowing your organization to effectively identify, merge, and prevent duplicate Salesforce data. By implementing ActivePrime CleanData, your organization can identify, resolve, and prevent duplicate records in Salesforce.