Within Relationship Management, you can search for contact duplicates. The contact duplicate search only applies to contact companies (and not to contact persons).
There are two ways of searching for duplicates.
-
You can have Microsoft Dynamics NAV automatically search for duplicates every time that you create contacts. To do this, you select the Autosearch for Duplicates check box in the Marketing Setup window.
-
You can search for duplicates manually. In this case, you must perform a search periodically, for example, after you have entered a new contact.
Search Strings
When Microsoft Dynamics NAV searches for duplicates, it uses search strings. You can set up search strings in the Duplicate Search String Setup window, by combining the first and last characters from any of the following fields in the Contact table:
- Name
- Name 2
- Address
- Address2
- Post Code
- City
- Phone No.
- VAT Registration No.
Each time that you generate the duplicate search or create a contact company, Microsoft Dynamics NAV compares the new contact's search string with the search strings of the other contacts. If the percentage of identical strings is equal to or larger than the search hit percentage you have defined in the Marketing Setup window, then Microsoft Dynamics NAV considers the contact a duplicate.
Example
The following table shows examples of search strings that can be set up in the Duplicate Search String Setup window.
| Field | Part of Field | Length |
|---|---|---|
Name | First | 5 |
Name | Last | 5 |
Address | First | 5 |
Address | Last | 5 |
City | First | 5 |
City | Last | 5 |
Post Code | First | 5 |
Post Code | Last | 5 |
VAT Registration No. | First | 5 |
VAT Registration No. | Last | 5 |
The following table displays information for an example contact.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
Name | United Furnishing Ltd. |
Address | 45 Lindon Road |
City | London |
Post Code | SW39GY |
VAT Registration No. | 123456789 |
The following table displays the results of a search based on strings from the example contact in the previous table.
| Field | Part of Field | Length | String Result |
|---|---|---|---|
Name | First | 5 | UNITE |
Name | Last | 5 | NGLTD |
Address | First | 5 | 45LIN |
Address | Last | 5 | NROAD |
City | First | 5 | LONDO |
City | Last | 5 | ONDON |
Post Code | First | 5 | SW39G |
Post Code | Last | 5 | W39GY |
VAT Registration No. | First | 5 | 12345 |
VAT Registration No. | Last | 5 | 45678 |
If the search hit percentage you have defined in the Marketing Setup window is 60%, when six or more of these ten strings are identical to another contact's search strings, then the two contacts are considered to be duplicates.
You can see a list of duplicates in the Contact Duplicates window. You can specify that two contacts are separate contacts. If the two contacts are actually true duplicates, you must remove one of them manually by deleting the duplicate's contact card.