4 ways to deal with duplicates in CiviCRM

If you want to get a handle on duplicate contacts in your data, here are a few ways you can get a jump on the situation:

CiviCRM core features

CiviCRM provides good features right out of the box for finding and merging duplicate contacts.

Take a look at the documentation to get familiar.

Extensions

Once you're familiar with the core “Find and Merge Duplicate Contacts” features, you may find them to be quite sufficient for your needs.

But if you start to find that they're not quite enough, you can get a real boost in productivity from one of the extensions provided by the CiviCRM community.

Head over to the CiviCRM Extensions Directory for a look at what's available. For example:

• Deduper
  Adds a new screen & tools for faster deduping.

• X-Dedupe (Extended Deduplication)
  Offers a modular and flexible alternative to CiviCRM's built-in deduplication system. It's designed to be fast, scalable, and highly configurable, providing almost 60 modules for your configuration, and the capacity to automate the merging process once you get your configuration nailed down.

Human effort

Don't forget that a CRM system is only as good as the people who are using it. Good data quality demands that everyone give careful attention to deduping along the way.

You'll want to be sure that:

• Someone is assigned the task of periodically finding and merging duplicates.

• Staff members who create new contacts are trained to look for existing contacts first, and to pay attention to CiviCRM's in-app alerts when a possible duplicate is being created.

Custom development

This is last on the list because all of the above will usually be enough —and because custom development is an expense that can't be undertaken lightly.

But for a few clients, I've found that the business case really does justify a little customization.

Our more successful efforts have been around automating the process of scanning for duplicate contacts. Site admins are alerted when potential duplicates are found, and they can, at their convenience, review those duplicate candidates and either mark them as "not duplicates" or merge them appropriately.

Here's the thing:

Whatever your situation, once you get above a few hundred contacts, you're probably going to start seeing duplicates in your data. Don't let this go un-checked.

Stay on top of it from the beginning, and if you're already behind, find a way to address it sooner rather than later.

It won't just "go away" by itself.

All the best,
A.