Detecting Duplicate Records and Merging

The Spectrum service looks for duplicate records based on the data you entered in the Name and Address fields of the entity record. If potential duplicate records are found and listed, you can merge the duplicate records to create a Master record.

Duplicate Detection and Merging is provided only for Billing Address in case of Accounts, and the Primary Address in case of Contacts and Leads. In case the Billing and Shipping addresses have separate address values, then duplicate detection and merging is run only on the Billing Address. The same holds true for Primary and Alternate addresses, where duplicate detection and merging is run only on the Primary address in a similar case.

If either the Copy billing address to shipping address checkbox is checked in case of Accounts or the Copy primary address to alternate address checkbox is checked in case of Contacts and Leads meaning both addresses are same, duplicate detection is run on the address and any changes resulting from merging duplicate addresses are copied to both the addresses.

  1. Go to Accounts, Contacts, or Leads in the menu bar.
  2. To create a new record, click Create. Else, to edit an existing record, click on the desired record, then click Edit in the top right.
  3. Enter the details of the record.
    To perform duplicate detection and merging, a combination of the Name and Address fields is used. Ensure you enter at least the Name and preferably the Address fields as well. The accuracy and quality of the duplicate detection and the merged record depends on the accucracy of the details provided.
  4. Click Dedupe and Merge.
    The Duplicate Detection and Merging window opens, listing all the records that may be potential duplicates for the entity you are saving.
  5. In the Duplicate Detection and Merging window's, the MatchScore column indicates how similar the duplicate records are to the record you are saving. An identical record has a score of 100. The lower the number, the less closely the record matches the record you are saving.
    In the Action column:
    1. Mark as Master that record into which you wish to merge the selected details from the duplicate records. This Master record is preserved and will contain the merged data.
      The MatchScore column of the Master record is blank.
      Note: By default, the last record in the Dedupe window is marked as the Master record, while the remaining are marked as Option records.
    2. Out of the Option records, mark as Merge those records from which you want to select specific field values to create the Master record. Click the column values that you want to merge into the master record. These selected values are highlighted and combined to create the master record. These 'merged' records are then deleted and do not show up in any future duplicate detection run.
    3. The remaining Option records are left without any changes, and show up in future duplicate detection runs.
    4. Click Submit.
      The selected values from the various Merge records are merged into the Master record, and these values now populate the relevant address fields in the parent window.
  6. Click Save in the parent window to save the entity with the address details from the Master record.
    The unique match key generated is now saved for the Master address record.
Attention: For all future dedup runs matching this particular Name and Address, this Master record as well as the Option marked records might be listed based on Threshold value. However, the Merge marked records are deleted and do not get listed in any future dedup runs for the same Name and Address combination.