Home > DemandTools for AppExchange Modules > DemandTools Cleansing Modules > DeDupe Best Practices

DeDupe Best Practices

Please test deduplication scenarios thoroughly before deduping a large number of records, as there is no automatic "undo"/"rollback" option.  If you have a Salesforce sandbox, it is recommended that you test in this environment prior to deduping your production data.

More information on pointing DemandTools to the Salesforce Sandbox can be found here.

1. Dedupe in the following order: 

2. Use at least a 3 pass strategy for identifying duplicates

• Start with very rigid criteria
• Rigid Criteria means matching on at least 4 or 5 fields and using strict matching types
• Loosen criteria by matching on less fields and choosing less strict mapping types
• Loosen criteria with each pass
• This strategy will help clean up the duplicates in a quicker more manageable manner

3.  It is recommended that name, address, phone fields are standardized prior to searching for duplicates.

• This is not a requirement as DemandTools has lots of advanced mapping techniques to find matches when these fields are not standardized.  However, the cleaner and more complete the data, the easier it will be to find matches.
• MassImpact can be used to standardize most of these fields.  Please refer to the MassImpact documents for details on how to make basic changes (i.e. find records where state - Texas and change to TX), and how to use prebuilt formulas for more complex standardizations (i.e. "Normalized_US_Address", "NaPhoneFix" etc.).
• The Address Verification module is also extremely helpful in standardizing as well as completing address data.  If Address Verification will be used, there is no need to use MassImpact to standardize address fields first, as this will be done as part of the verification process.
  
  
  

See also