Process for over-riding contacts when new data is entered

Max Classic
#1

I’m running some tests into what the concrete rules are surrounding Infusionsoft’s approach to tackling duplication. Specifically with regard to using an email address as a Unique ID/Key ID as not to produce multiple contacts when somebody enquirers and enters my CRM.

I created a few contacts without assigning them email addresses and then assigned them all the same email address after creating them. This allowed me to have multiple contacts with the same email. I then filled in the online form which over-wrote one of the contact records while maintaining the other 2.

I understand that I can run a de-duplication process to remove instances of contact records with the same email address., but I just wanted some clarity on what the rules are regarding this topic. Can 2 contact records have the same email address ONLY if a record is made independently of an email address being assigned?

Thanks,
Joe

#2

I don’t have a full understanding of Infusionsoft duplicate checking processes, but I can shed a little light.

Duplicate checking does not run when you are updating contact data directly in the record.
Duplicate checking does happen when a webform is filled out.
I don’t know how internal forms handle duplicate checking, though.

You can have any number of duplicate records existing in the system (contacts sharing the same email address). If a webform is submitted for an email address that is shared by multiple contacts, then Infusionsoft will update one of those records and none of the others, but it won’t combine any existing records.

Combining duplicates only happens inside Infusionsoft when you run a merge, and I believe an import can also be set to merge duplicates (I had a client mess up an import once that resulted in several hours of head-ache on all sides trying to un-merge a few hundred records that should not have been merged).

1 Like
#3

Hi Jordan,

Thanks so much for clarifying those things for me. I had run a few tests and this all seems to corroborate my findings and make sense so that’s a huge help.

The client I’m working with that enquired into this will only be using external web-forms where email is a required field (even sales people use an external form for phone leads), so I don’t need to worry about any duplicate contacts with the same email address. :smiley:

Thanks again,
Joe