Record Validation for Duplicates: To Validate a Lead for Duplicates

When you create a lead (or another employee does so), you may want to make sure that the lead has no duplicate leads in the system. If any duplicates have been found, you may want to eliminate a duplicate record. The following activity will show you how to validate a lead for duplicates.

Attention:
This activity is based on the U100 dataset. If you are using another dataset, or if any system settings have been changed in U100, these changes can affect the workflow of the activity and the results of the processing. To avoid any issues, restore the U100 dataset to its initial state.

Story

Suppose that you are Bill Owen, a marketing manager of the SweetLife Fruits & Jams company. You have contact information for two new leads: Jeanne Martinez, a consultant at the BeeJet Store; and John Kimmel, a purchasing manager at the Honeywind Store. Before you start working with the leads in the system, you need to validate the leads for duplicates.

Configuration Overview

In the U100 dataset, for the purposes of this activity, the following tasks have been performed:

  • On the Enable/Disable Features (CS100000) form, the following features have been enabled:
    • Customer Management: This feature provides the customer relationship management (CRM) functionality, including lead and customer tracking, and gives users the ability to manage sales opportunities, contacts, marketing lists, and campaigns.
    • Duplicate Validation in the Customer Management group of features: This feature provides the duplicate validation functionality, which you can use to set up and perform automatic validation of lead and contact records for duplicates.
  • On the Duplicate Validation (CR103000) form, the following settings have been specified:
    • For the Lead to Lead pair of records, in the Create on Entry column, the Warn option has been selected for the Email matching field.
    • For the Lead to Contact pair of records, in the Create on Entry column, the Warn option has been selected for the Email matching field.
  • On the Leads (CR301000) form, the Jeanne Martinez lead has been created. (You will create a duplicate of this lead.)
  • On the Contacts (CR302000) form, the John K. Kimmel contact has been created. (You will create a lead that has duplicate settings of this contact.)

Process Overview

In this activity, you will do the following by using the Leads (CR301000) form:

  1. Create a lead, validate the lead for duplicates, and merge the contact data of the newly created lead with the contact data of the existing lead. As a result, the system will save only one lead.
  2. Create another lead, validate the lead for duplicates, and associate the lead record with the existing contact record.

System Preparation

Before you start validating leads for duplicates, you should do the following:

  1. Launch the MYOB Acumatica website with the U100 dataset preloaded.
  2. Sign in to the system as marketing manager Bill Owen by using the following credentials:
    • Username: owen
    • Password: 123
  3. Make sure that on the Company and Branch Selection menu, in the top pane of the MYOB Acumatica screen, the SweetLife Head Office and Wholesale Center branch is selected.

Step 1: Performing Duplicate Validation for a Lead That Has a Duplicate Lead

To create the Jeanne Martinez lead and validate this lead for duplicates, do the following:

  1. On the Leads (CR301000) form, add a new record.
  2. On the Contact Info tab, specify the following contact information for the lead:
    • First Name: Jeanne
    • Last Name: Martinez
    • Account Name: BeeJet
    • Job Title: Consultant
    • Email: j.martinez@beejet.example.com
    • Address Line 1: 2467 Canterbury Drive
    • City: New York
  3. On the form toolbar, click Save. The system checks the lead for duplicates. Because a duplicate has been found, it opens the Warning dialog box, asking whether you want to save the lead.
  4. In the dialog box, click Yes, which closes the dialog box. Because a possible duplicate has been found, the system has inserted Possible Duplicate in the Duplicate box of the Summary area of the form, and the Duplicates tab has appeared on the form.

You have created and validated the Jeanne Martinez lead for duplicates. On the Duplicates tab, the duplicate lead record (which had already been created) is listed.

Step 2: Merging Duplicate Leads

To merge two duplicate lead records that contain contact information of Jeanne Martinez, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the Jeanne Martinez lead on the Leads (CR301000) form, open the Duplicates tab. In the Records for Merging table, notice a row that has summary information about the duplicate lead. The duplicate values of UI elements in this lead are highlighted.
    Tip:
    The Records for Association table in the lower part of the tab is empty, meaning that the lead does not have any contacts or business accounts with duplicate settings.
  2. In the only row of the Records for Merging table, click the Jeanne Martinez link to open the duplicate lead record in a new browser tab.
  3. On the Leads form, open the Activities tab. Notice that the tab has the following rows:
    • A row with the summary settings of an activity of the Phone Call type
    • A row with the summary settings of the Task type
  4. Return to the browser tab that has the Leads form with the Jeanne Martinez lead that you have just created.
  5. On the table toolbar of the Records for Merging table, click Merge. The Merge Conflicts dialog box opens.

    In the Target Record box, notice that Current Record is selected. The table in the dialog box lists the different field values in both the lead that you have just created and the duplicate lead that already exists in the system. The Current Record column contains the field values for the lead that you are currently viewing on the Leads form. The Duplicate Record column contains the field values for the duplicate lead.

    Because in the Target Record box, Current Record is selected, the unlabeled check boxes are selected for all the non-empty field values of the lead that you are currently viewing on the form. You can select or clear check boxes as you need. The Phone 1 field value is empty in the currently selected lead, and for this field value, the unlabeled check box is selected for the duplicate lead. The system will keep all the selected field values when the leads have been merged.

    Tip:
    In the Target Record box, if you select Duplicate Record, the unlabeled check boxes become selected for all the non-empty field values of the duplicate lead.
  6. Select the unlabeled check box left of the BeeJet Store field value. (Suppose that you have checked that BeeJet Store is the correct name of the lead's company and you want to keep this name.) Notice that the unlabeled check box left of the BeeJet field value becomes cleared.
  7. Select the unlabeled check box left of the STORE field value. This is the correct lead class for the lead because the company of Jeanne Martinez is a supermarket.
  8. Click Resolve to merge the duplicate leads and close the dialog box. The duplicate lead has been merged with the target one; the system has given the other duplicate lead record the Disqualified status.

    Notice that in the Account Name box of the Contact Info tab, the system has inserted BeeJet Store. In the Summary area, notice that the system has inserted Validated in the Duplicate box. On the CRM Info tab, in the Lead Class box, the system has inserted STORE. The Duplicates tab is no longer displayed on the form. On the Activities tab, notice that the table has the following rows that the system has copied from the duplicate lead:

    • A row with the summary settings of the activity of the Phone Call type
    • A row with the summary settings of the Task type

You have merged two duplicate leads into one record.

Step 3: Performing Duplicate Validation for a Lead That Has a Duplicate Contact

To validate the John K. Kimmel lead for duplicates, do the following:

  1. On the Leads (CR301000) form, add a new record.
  2. On the Contact Info tab specify the following contact information for the lead:
    • First Name: John K.
    • Last Name: Kimmel
    • Account Name: Honeywind Store
    • Job Title: Purchasing Manager
    • Email: j.kimmel@honeywind.example.com
    • Cell: +1 (212) 555-0187
    • City: New York
  3. On the CRM Info tab, in the Lead Class box, select STORE.
  4. On the form toolbar, click Save. The system checks the lead for duplicates. Because a duplicate has been found, it opens the Warning dialog box, asking whether you want to save the lead.
  5. In the dialog box, click Yes, which closes the dialog box. Because a possible duplicate has been found, the system has inserted Possible Duplicate in the Duplicate box of the Summary area of the form, and the Duplicates tab has appeared on the form.

You have created and validated the John K. Kimmel lead for duplicates. On the Duplicates tab, the duplicate contact record (which had already been created in the system) is listed.

Step 4: Associating the Lead with the Duplicate Contact

To associate the John K. Kimmel lead with the John K. Kimmel contact and update the settings in the lead record, do the following:

  1. While you are still viewing the Leads (CR301000) form for the John K. Kimmel lead, open the Duplicates tab.
  2. In the only row of the Records for Association table, which has Contact in the Type column, click the John K. Kimmel link.
  3. On the Contacts (CR302000) form, which opens in a new browser tab, review the data in the contact record. On the Details tab, notice that the contact has the following information that was not specified for the lead:
    • The address settings in the Address section
    • The +1-212-555-0173 phone number in the Business 1 box in the Contact section
  4. Return to the browser tab that has John K. Kimmel lead opened on the Leads form.
  5. On the Duplicates tab, on the table toolbar of the Records for Association table, click Associate. The Associate the Contact with the Lead dialog box opens. The Sync with Lead check box is selected, which means that when the contact and the lead are associated, the contact and address information in both records will be the same because the system has inserted the same values in the contact and address settings for the lead and contact.
  6. In the dialog box, do the following:
    1. Select the unlabeled check box left of the Purchasing Manager field value because this job title is correct and you want to keep it for both the lead and the contact.
    2. Click Associate. This associates the selected lead with the contact that you have just viewed. The dialog box is closed. The Records for Association table no longer has any records.

      In the Contact box of the Summary area, you can see the John K. Kimmel contact, which the lead has been associated with. On the Contact Info tab, notice that in the Business 1 box, the +1-212-555-0173 phone number is inserted. This value has been copied form the associated contact. In the Address section, notice that the address information has been inserted.

  7. On the form toolbar, click Save.

    The system checks the lead for duplicates. Notice that the system has inserted Validated in the Duplicate box of the Summary area. The Duplicates tab no longer appears on the form because no duplicate records for the John K. Kimmel lead have been found.

You have associated the lead with the contact.