Duplicate Check Configuration

To reduce the risk of adding duplicate accounts to your system when you import leads, all incoming leads undergo a duplicate check to determine whether their information matches an existing account. The system uses the settings defined here to identify matches and determine when to update existing contacts automatically with information from incoming leads and when to present possible matches to users for review.

In this area, you can define the thresholds and criteria the system uses to check for duplicate accounts when importing leads. These settings are separate from those set up in Duplicate Account Check Configuration, which are used to identify possible duplicates when users add accounts manually.

You can modify the default thresholds and criteria to match your organization’s own rules and practices. To revert all thresholds and criteria to the system defaults, click the Reset to Default button.

Follow these steps to access Duplicate Check Configuration:

1. From the Home screen, do one of the following:
• Click Configure on the navigation panel.
• Click the down arrow next to Home on the menubar and select Configure.
• Click Areas > Configure on the menubar.

From any other area of the program, do one of the following:

1. • Click the down arrow to the right of the Home options bar button and select Configure.
   • Click Home > Configure on the menubar. The Configure screen displays.

2. Click Leads Inbox on the navigation panel or Areas > Leads Inbox on the menubar.
3. Click Duplicate Check on the navigation panel.

Duplicate Account Check Thresholds

The duplicate check thresholds determine when the system will present an account as a potential duplicate for a user to review, and when it will merge accounts automatically during automated lead import.

When importing a lead, the system compares the match percentage for each existing account (calculated using the criteria values that determine how closely an existing account contact matches the lead’s information) to the threshold percentages. Based on the results of this comparison, the system does one of the following:

• If no existing accounts match at a level equal to or greater than the Show possible duplicate accounts threshold, the system creates a new account.
• If multiple existing accounts match at a level equal to or greater than the Show possible duplicate account threshold, the system sends the lead to Leads Inbox and does not import it automatically.
• If one existing account matches at a level equal to or greater than the Automatically merge accounts threshold, the system merges the lead into that account.
• If an existing account matches at a level equal to or greater than the Show possible duplicate account threshold, but less than the Automatically merge accounts threshold, the system sends the lead to Leads Inbox and does not import it automatically.
• When a user imports a lead manually from Leads Inbox and at least one existing account matches at a level equal to or greater than the Show possible duplicate account threshold, the Possible Duplicates Found window displays for the user to evaluate the match.

The Show possible duplicate accounts threshold defaults to 80%, and the Automatically merge accounts threshold defaults to 95%.To change these thresholds to meet your organization’s standards, clear the existing value, enter a new value, and click Finish to save the change (changes do not save automatically).

To ensure that you have a clear understanding of the lead data your organization receives, Applied recommends starting with a lower Show duplicate accounts percentage and a higher Automatically merge accounts percentage. You can adjust these percentages as you become more familiar with the matching functionality.

Duplicate Account Check Criteria

Define criteria to customize the duplicate check to focus on areas that your organization deems the most significant for identifying possible matches. For example, your organization may prioritize addresses within the same postal code, or email addresses (as they are usually unique to particular individuals).

The system uses the criteria values in calculations that determine the strength of the match between an existing contact and the incoming lead. If you set Last name to 100%, for example, the system weights it more heavily in the calculation than if you set it to 50%. Some criteria allow you to exclude specific words from the calculation. Exclude common words that could artificially inflate the strength of a match (such as words that are common to the names of businesses in a particular industry).

The system provides a recommended default weight for each criterion as a starting point. Before modifying these defaults, review all options and make sure you fully understand how your organization wants to use each criterion for matching.

To change the default Match Type selection (where available) and/or the Weighting selection for a criterion, select a different radio button. To exclude a word or a phrase for a criterion, enter it in the Exclude these words field. If you are excluding multiple words or phrases, separate them with commas (otherwise, the system will treat them as a single phrase).

Empty field handling

Sometimes an incoming lead or an existing account might be missing information in a field configured as one of your matching criteria. In these instances, the system uses the Empty fields setting to determine how to weight these fields in the calculation (rather than the percentages defined for those criteria). This setting can prevent empty fields from affecting your match percentage and enables you to standardize empty field handling for all criteria.

You have the following options:

• Disregarded (default): The system does not use empty fields when calculating a match.
• Calculated at 0%: The system assigns a value of zero to empty fields when calculating a match.
• Calculated at 50%: The system assigns a value of 50% to empty fields when calculating a match.

Matching and weighting

For some criteria where small, insignificant variations are common (such as street addresses and individuals’ first and last names), you can specify a match type. Indicate whether the system should look for an Exact or Fuzzy match for these criteria. Criteria without Match type options use the Exact match type.

• Exact: Requires identical field entries on the incoming lead and the existing contact to calculate a 100% probability that the data is the same. This is an all-or-nothing option.
  
  For example, the system would assign a value of 100 to the First name field if both the incoming lead and the existing contact had the first name “Tom.” If the lead had the first name “Thomas” and the existing contact had the first name “Tom,” however, the system would not recognize a match and would assign a value of zero to this field.
• Fuzzy (Default): Permits slight differences in wording or spelling when calculating the probability that the data is the same.
  
  For example, the system would assign a value of 100 to the First name field if both the incoming lead and the existing contact had the first name “Tom.” If the lead had the first name “Thomas” and the existing contact had the first name “Tom,” however, the fuzzy matching algorithm would compare the two values. The system would recognize that a match might still exist, but with a lower degree of confidence (in this example, about 36%).

Select a Weighting radio button for each criterion to determine how much influence it has when the system identifies potential matching contacts or duplicate accounts for the incoming lead. You can set a weight for each duplicate account check criterion anywhere between Disable (0) and Very High (100).