Checking for duplicates

By default, Maximizer doesn't check for duplicate entries when creating new records. That's a good thing. Sometimes you have 2 companies called "ABC Wine Shop" or 2 people named Joe Smith. So rather than having people name their records strange things like ABC Wine Shop A or Debbie 2, you can just enter the name of the record without thinking about a clever name.

You can turn on duplicate checking when adding Address Book entries by going to the Address Book tab in the File > Preferences in the Administrator. Here, you can set up rules that Maximizer will use to check whether or not a record is the same as another record. There is more information about this in the User's Guide.

What I really wanted to talk about today was the ability to group duplicates together and what you can do with them afterwards.

So let's say you have a list of contacts, and you've accidentally created two of the same Company. Let's use ABC Wine Shop for example. You and your partner have been entering notes for ABC Wine Shop, but you in the original ABC Wine Shop entry and your partner in a new one that she created when she couldn't find the original ABC Wine Shop. So you have 2 entries for the same company.

So here is what I would do:

1. Create an Address Book list with the duplicate entries.
   
   You want to make sure that all of the entries for the specific company are displayed in the Address Book window. If you were to do a general audit of your Address Book and pull up all duplicates, simply do an all companies search and pull up your entire address book.
   
   Once you have a list, select the Name column and go to Search > Check 'Name' for duplicates. This will work for any field in your column view, like phone numbers.
   
   
2. Once you have a duplicate, figure out which one is the "correct one".
   
   This could be the one with the most up-to-date data or the one with the correct address. You decide.
   
   
3. Drag the duplicate entry (source) into the correct entry (target).  This will bring up the following window:
   
   

There are the 3 options and what they do, from the F1 help.

Relate the Source Entry to the Target Entry
Select this option to relate the selected entry to the currently active Address Book entry. The related entry will appear in the Related Entries window list of the target entry. (All notes, user-defined fields and documents associated with the related entry are associated with the Address Book entry, once the relationship has been established.)

Combine the Source Entry and the Target Entry into a Single Entry
Select this option to copy information such as Contacts, notes, documents, and opportunities associated with a selected Address Book entry to another. Note that both the Source and Target entries remain in the Address Book when you use this option.

Move the Source Entry to the Target Entry
Select this option to copy information such as Contacts, notes, documents, and opportunities associated with an Address Book entry to another. When you select this option you are given a choice to delete the source record.

What we want to select is the "Move the Source Entry to the Target Entry" option as this will delete the source record.

This handy tip will let you clean up your Address Book. As you can tell with my blog about completing hotlist tasks, I'm all about keeping my database nice and tidy. It's always easier to find things when your Address Book is in order. Now, if I could only figure out how to keep my car nice and tidy...