Duplicate information in Salesforce (or “dupes”) are hands-down the commonest concern that we’re referred to as in to wash up at Iceberg.
You may assume resolving duplicate information needs to be a fast and straightforward repair.
However as we’ll see on this article, deduping your information truly takes extra tactical work than you’d count on.
As an illustration:
- How do you outline a reproduction lead should you promote to separate accounts who’re a part of the similar franchise?
- How do you retain your knowledge clear and duplicates at bay when a reproduction is likely to be created through an API?
- Do it is advisable to automate the method? In that case, what are the proper instruments for the job?
I’ll be protecting these tactical gremlins on this article, in addition to providing you some sensible options to stopping and cleansing up duplicate leads in Salesforce.
Be a part of the dialog: The right way to clear up duplicate information in Outreach.io 💬
What are duplicate leads?
Duplicate leads or information in Salesforce occur when the identical individual or firm is entered into Salesforce greater than as soon as.
…proper?
Truly, the definition of duplicate leads depends upon your group.
I’ll offer you two concrete situations to indicate you that I’m not intentionally nitpicking right here.
Situation 1: You promote ERP (Enterprise Useful resource Planning) software program to Fortune 100 firms.
There’s no purpose you’ll ever deliberately create a number of accounts for an organization like GE. On this state of affairs, you might use the Account Title subject to test for duplicates. You already know that ‘GE’, ‘Common Electrical’, and ‘GE Inc’ are all duplicates—a simple repair. Crafting your definition of a reproduction will likely be a comparatively simple course of.
Situation 2: You promote POS (Level of Sale) techniques to particular person franchises.
There have been over 13,000 McDonald’s places within the US in 2019, so discovering two accounts with McDonald’s within the title doesn’t imply you’ve discovered a reproduction. On this state of affairs, your definition of a reproduction will have to be extra complicated.
Take a look at my article: Do I Want Salesforce? Guidelines 📚
Greatest practices for outlining duplicate leads in your org
It’s essential to assemble a clear, written definition of what a reproduction is earlier than transferring ahead.
Whereas “fuzzy” definitions might be helpful in some situations, they’ll’t be relied on. In case your definition leaves any room for interpretation or subjective judgment, you’ll battle to eradicate duplicates in a programmatic means.
Lastly, you also needs to remember that there are various levels of duplicate leads. Some are full carbon copies of each other. Others comprise solely partially copied info.
And, as time goes on, one of many information could also be up to date — and the others not.
For instance, two information may comprise the identical title, telephone quantity, e-mail, and so on. However as time goes on, solely a type of information is up to date with new details about the shopper.
So watch out to maintain essentially the most up-to-date and correct document.
The right way to repair duplicate leads in Salesforce
The best way you’ll resolve duplicates — and stop them within the first place — will rely upon just a few elements:
- What number of information you’re coping with
- What varieties of objects you’re working with (customary or customized)
- The various methods new information might be entered into Salesforce
Keep in mind once I stated the fixing duplicate leads was extra tactical than you’d think about?
You is likely to be wonderful simply leveraging Salesforce’s built-in Duplicate Administration. However this device is unquestionably not with out its limitations. In lots of circumstances, you’ll want a customized repair (extra on that in a minute).
I’ll stroll you thru methods for managing duplicate information in Salesforce, each natively inside Salesforce and through third-party apps.
Associated: Information Governance: Salesforce Objects in Lead-to-Money Course of 📚
SALESFORCE NATIVE DUPLICATE MANAGEMENT
Salesforce has its personal native duplicate administration system for customers on the ‘Efficiency’ and ‘Limitless’ plans.
This might effectively be sufficient for many SMBs, who use customary objects and aren’t coping with big quantities of information.
If that is you, you possibly can arrange your individual guidelines instantly inside Salesforce for Accounts, Leads, and Contacts to assist keep away from duplication of information.
Professional tip: Keep in mind, organising cross-object guidelines is essential as a result of many Leads can exist as Contacts and vice versa.
The right way to handle duplicates in Salesforce
Relying on the kind of document you’re attempting to dedupe (e.g. accounts, contacts, offers, and so on), the you’ll almost definitely need to give attention to e-mail tackle and firm area.
Actual matches
For instance, you possibly can create a typical “Account Actual Title” match that mechanically blocks or alerts a consumer if an account already exists with the identical title.
Professional: Easy and easy to arrange
Con: When you have slight variation in your account names, you possibly can nonetheless find yourself with a reproduction document. For instance, one SDR enters an organization’s title as “IBM,” however one other enters it as “Worldwide Enterprise Machines.”
Fuzzy guidelines
To keep away from the error above, attempt organising a “fuzzy rule.” This rule will return matches when two fields are comparable, however not a precise match.
Professional: Fuzzy guidelines can floor duplicate accounts that “precise match” searches miss.
Con: Fuzzy logic, particularly when utilized to an object like Account Title, is much from precise. So should you’re utilizing a fuzzy rule, pair it with extra matching standards, like an tackle or e-mail precise match. This may also help be certain that duplicates are returned from the server when using fuzzy logic.
Utilizing the information import wizard
One other simple technique to keep away from creating duplicate contacts and leads is to import them through Salesforce’s Information Import Wizard.
This function mechanically prevents the creation of duplicate information utilizing the document’s e-mail tackle as a singular identifier.
Avoiding cross-object duplication
Lastly, to keep away from cross-object duplication, you possibly can arrange guidelines equivalent to “Lead-to-Contact e-mail precise match” and “Contact-to-Lead match” to alert customers to a possible cross-object duplicate.
Abstract: Limitations of Salesforce’s native duplication administration:
- It solely alerts when knowledge is entered manually. Which means if a possible duplicate is entered through an API, Salesforce will mechanically block it. You can then doubtlessly lose necessary knowledge with no third get together answer that may merge the 2 information
- It solely permits you to create guidelines for traditional objects so should you use customized objects you’ll want one other answer
- It requires guide evaluate: any batch job achieved with Salesforce would require a guide evaluate which could be a big time suck and drain your sources. It may be possible for small firms, but it surely’s not scalable
Conclusion: Moreover its Information Import Wizard, Salesforce doesn’t do an amazing job of offering out-of-the field deduplication instruments. So most organizations will find yourself buying third get together software program/extensions.
I’ll stroll you thru my two favorites:
APPEXCHANGE – TAKING THINGS A STEP FURTHER
At Iceberg, we’ve experimented with just a few instruments from the Appexchange for duplication administration.
In the end, we’re fairly pleased with each Cloudingo (4.79 common ranking) & Leandata (4.93 common ranking).
Cloudingo
You should utilize Cloudingo to wash and dedupe massive portions of information which have been entered previous to any creation of duplicate guidelines. It may possibly additionally deal with mass dumps the dupe guidelines missed.
Professional: You possibly can scan your knowledge and auto-merge duplicates each week, each day, and even each hour.
Con: A brand new duplicate can nonetheless trigger an issue throughout a small window of time earlier than the following automation runs.
Think about this state of affairs:
You’ve got your each day cleanup automation scheduled to run at midnight.
Earlier within the day, a decision-maker at an current account with an necessary, lively alternative downloads a whitepaper as a part of their analysis.
This motion triggers the creation of a brand new lead document in Salesforce, but it surely’s a reproduction of the present account document.
The brand new lead is mechanically routed to a Gross sales Improvement Rep, who fails to test the system for duplicates (in fact, this by no means occurs… proper?).
The SDR contacts the choice maker, which leads to an embarrassing dialog—and an offended account government.
What to do: If you’d like your Salesforce occasion to remain clear sufficient to keep away from awkward situations like this, you’ll must implement a system for real-time cleansing as effectively. Happily, there are applied sciences obtainable to assist with this, too.
LeanData
LeanData permits you to create a workflow on your information which might be triggered at particular instances — like when a brand new document is created or when the information in a document is up to date.
These workflows might be configured to test for duplicates, merge matching information, convert leads, replace fields, ship e-mail alerts, and extra.
Professional: LeanData is tremendous sturdy, and its workflows supply complete duplicate decision and prevention.
Con: This device is so sturdy that attending to grips with among the logic might be difficult.
…however we actually suggest sticking it out as it could actually change into a useful device on your group.
Which answer is best for you?
I hope by now you possibly can see that deduping your information isn’t a easy in-and-out course of and with out taking the time to think about your necessities you possibly can find yourself paying massive when it comes to knowledge integrity and wasted sources.
Nobody individual, plan, or device can assure a duplicate-free Salesforce occasion. However with the appropriate applied sciences and implementation plan, it’s doable to search out and proper nearly all of duplications.
So earlier than leaping into begin deduplicating your information keep in mind these key factors:
- Create a transparent definition of what a reproduction document is
- Analyze your wants, the way you’re coming into knowledge, and what number of information you’re dealing with to grasp what answer(s) will work finest for you
- Make use of a device that may retroactively clear current duplicates and shortly discover and repair future duplicates
Iceberg is at all times pleased to assist scaling firms clear up their Salesforce situations and assist them construct options to assist their progress.
Contact us at this time to see how we are able to assist you.
