Just in time to cheer me up and remind me that Spring is around the corner (seriously, enough with the snow!), Salesforce released a duplicate blocking feature. HOORAY!
Previously we had to download an app from the appexchange to get any kind of duplicate blocking functionality – and even then there were some limitations. I’ve only given Salesforce’s Duplicate Management a quick test run, but I love the functionality so far.
Admins need to configure Duplicate Management (under Setup → Data.com Administration → Duplicate Management).
First you’ll set the Matching Rules. The Matching rules define the criteria that would qualify a potential match/duplicate. I created one on Contacts that looks at email address. After you create the rule remember to Activate it.
Next set the Duplicate Rules. Duplicate Rules determine what happens after a potential duplicate is identified. You can allow users to create the record anyway (essentially an “override”), and/or report the potential duplicate (for System Admins to clean up later). You can also set what happens on a record edit vs create. If a user attempts to edit what is a potential duplicate, they can also be alerted (and can override as well). You’ll need to link the Duplicate Rule to the Matching Rule (which is nice, as it allows you to set different outcomes on different Matching Rules).
Lastly you can define criteria for the Duplicate Rule – for instance only run this rule on certain record types. I can see this being handy for organizations who have Salesforce integrated with their website – and want to always ALLOW duplicates that are created by the website – you could exempt the specific user that the website uses from the Duplicate Rule.) You’ll also need to activate your Duplicate Rule.
In my opinion built in Duplicate Management functionality has been lacking for awhile, so I’m super psyched that it’s finally here!
For full details check out the Salesforce Spring ‘15 Release Notes (skip to page 125!)
https://help.salesforce.com/help/pdfs/en/salesforce_spring15_release_notes.pdf
