Getting the answers you need

Easy how-to answers are available right inside of CiviCRM, if you’re using the DocBot extension (see yesterday’s email if you missed it).

Naturally, it lacks the critical thinking you’d expect from a knowledgeable person, but it’s a great way to find the kind of answers that are hidden within the thousands of pages of CiviCRM’s official documentation.

As a quick example, here’s an email exchange I had with list member Kim just a few days ago (shared with her permission, of course.)

Kim wrote:

Hi Allen,

If I create and run a General dedupe rule, is it going to show me the suspected matches, like it would with a Supervised rule? I've read the literature over and over again and am not sure how these two rules behave differently.

Thanks,
Kim

And I responded:

Hi Kim,

When you run any dedupe rule, they'll all behave the same (according to the configuration of the rule, of course).

As for the "Usage" setting of any deduple rule, this section from the docs may help: https://docs.civicrm.org/user/en/latest/common-workflows/deduping-and-merging/#understanding-dedupe-rules-supervised-unsupervised-and-general

Does that help?

- A.

And Kim, kind soul that she is, responded:

Yes! Thank you!

Simple enough.

But, check out this similar “conversation” in DocBot:

Me: What's the difference between a General dedupe rule and a Supervised one?

DocBot:

Based on the documentation, here are the key differences between General and Supervised dedupe rules:

Supervised Rules:

- Can be configured with a broader definition of what constitutes a duplicate

- Allow the user to decide whether to act on the potential duplicate match

- The user interface will alert the user if a potential duplicate is found, but gives them the option to keep or merge contacts

General Rules:

- You can configure multiple General rules for each contact type (unlike Supervised or Unsupervised rules, of which you can only have one per contact type)

- Provide additional criteria to scan for possible duplicates beyond the default Supervised and Unsupervised rules

- Offer more flexibility in defining duplicate matching criteria

The documentation notes that you can create "any number of additional 'General' rules to provide other criteria to scan for possible duplicates." When determining duplicates, CiviCRM checks up to five fields that you can specify, and you can even set a length value to determine how many characters in a field should be compared.

For more detailed information, you can refer to the Deduping and Merging documentation.

Not bad, right? It’s even got a link to the relevant documentation, right there in the answer.

Here’s the thing:

It’s great to have an expert on call. But there’s always at least some overhead there — whether it’s a financial cost, or just the time it takes to communicate.

But mastering your own systems — and indeed, taking charge of your own learning — is critical for getting the most out of your chosen tools, without having to incur that overhead each time you reach out to your perferred outside specialist.

Tools like DocBot are a great addition to your aresenal.

All the best,
A.

P.S. - In case you’re wondering, I still love to hear, and answer, any questions from anyone on this list! I just get excited when I see ways for folks to get the job done without waiting on a reply from me!