Checking Duplicate Records in Zoho CRM
When you have hundreds and thousands of records in your CRM, as your business grows, it becomes a very difficult task to check for duplicates. Zoho CRM helps you arrest duplicates even before they can be created, with the help of what we call "unique fields".
When you mark a field as unique, CRM will search existing records for duplicates based on that field's value. For example, assume that you have marked Email address as a unique field in the Leads module. When you try to create a lead whose Email address is the same as an exisiting lead, CRM will throw a duplication alert. Clearly, two people cannot have the same email ID. Other examples include Social Security Numbers, Passport Numbers, Product codes and the like. In Zoho CRM, you can mark a field from any module as "Unique". Once marked as "Unique", these fields play a vital role in managing duplicate records in Zoho CRM in various instances including manual creation of records as well as records created via import, APIs, lead/sales order/quote conversion.
The administrator or a user with the Customize Zoho CRM profile permission will be able to mark a field as unique. Once a field is marked as unique in a module, you will be able to arrest the creation of duplicate records in that module via manual creation, imports, integrations, web forms and so on.
Despite marking a field as unique, over time, if you find that there might be duplicate records in your account, you can use CRM's de-duplication tools to clear them up.
Availability
Permission Required: All the users can use this feature once it is enabled.
Mark a field as unique
Unique fields differentiate one record from the other in your CRM. Marking a field as unique helps in avoiding the creation of duplicate records. Users with the Customize Zoho CRM permission in profile can enable this feature. Please note that you need to enable it separately for the Leads and Contacts module.
Click on this link to know how to mark a field as unique and related notes: Mark a field as unique
Note
- When you mark a field as unique in the Leads module, you will see an option to enable duplication check in Contacts as well.
Consider a scenario. You have followed up with a contact called James. Another sales rep in your team adds the same record as a lead (James), without knowing that James is already a record in the Contacts module. In that case, it will simply be a duplicate entry.
You can stop the creation of the same contact in the leads module by enabling duplication check for Contacts. Once you have enabled this, whenever a duplicate entry is added in Leads, CRM will check existing leads as well as Contacts for matches.
To enable Duplication check in Contacts click the Change Preference link, which appears when you mark a field as unique. In the Duplicate Check Preference popup, select the Check duplicates in Contacts checkbox, map the unique fields of Leads module with the unique fields of Contacts module and click Save. You can always change this setting later.
You can also enable duplication check from Settings > Setup > Customization > Modules > Leads. Click the More icon on Leads > Duplicate Check Preference.
Usage
There are different ways of adding a record in Zoho CRM. You can fill the lead/contact form, clone a record, use the web forms, import records, use API and use many other ways to add records. Below, you will find the various scenarios when email duplication check is performed.
- Create and Edit records - You will get a notification message and you will not be able to save the record if the email address already exists in another record.
- RelatedLists - The email address duplication check will also be done when you create contacts in Related Lists.
- Lookup pop-up box - While creating leads/contacts from the lookup field's pop-up box, email address duplication check will be performed.
- Web form - Only records pulled from web-to-lead/contact forms will have the email duplication check. In case there is a duplicate found, it will be automatically sent for approval, even if the Lead/Contact Approval option is disabled. Only after the records are reviewed and approved, will it be added in the module. See Also Approve Records
- Clone - When you clone a record, in the Clone Lead/Contact page, the Email value will be automatically removed. You can add a different email address and save the record.
- Import - With the email address duplication check enabled, the Clone option will be disabled. You will be able to choose either Skip or Overwrite option as an action item for duplicate entries. When you choose the option to overwrite, Lead/Contact ID cannot be mapped.
- Mobile App - While adding a record using the Zoho CRM Mobile App, duplicate check will be performed and you will not be able to create duplicate Leads or Contacts.
- For API Methods - Following are the scenarios, when the email address duplication check is enabled:
- insertRecord API Method - Using this API method, if you add a record with an email address that already exists in the CRM account, you will receive a notification message: <message>Record(s) already exists</message>. The record will not be added.
- updateRecord API Method - Using this API method, if you update the Email field in a record, the email address duplication check will be performed. If a similar email address already exists in the CRM account, then the record will not be updated. While updating multiple records, it will be skipped.
- convertLead API Method - Using this API method, if you convert a lead, the email address duplication check will be performed. If a similar email address already exists in the CRM account, then the record will not be converted.
- insertRecord API Method - Using this API method, if you add a record with an email address that already exists in the CRM account, you will receive a notification message: <message>Record(s) already exists</message>. The record will not be added.
Note:
- When a field has been marked as unique, it field cannot be removed from the module layout. Also, you cannot remove the section that contains the unique field.
- If the Zoho defined Email field is hidden, this feature will not be available.
Limitations
Email address duplication check will not be performed in the following scenarios:
- Updating or adding records using Zoho Sheet View.
- During Data Migration.
- Restoring records from the Recycle Bin.
- Synchronizing contacts using Zoho CRM Plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, Google Contacts Sync features.