Use the 'Merge duplicates' update to search for and merge duplicate customer records. The update scans your database in match code sequence. The criteria used are the same as those described for the 'Address matching' screen. (Click here for details on the criteria on the 'Address matching' screen.) Customers with a score high enough to be considered an "exact" match may automatically be merged. Customers recognized as "near" matches are displayed for you to examine and to decide what course of action should be taken.
Report description
The description entered here will appear on the third line of the 'Merge duplicates' report that is produced by this update.
Company name
The company name entered here will also appear in the report's header as well as at the top of each page.
Country
You may enter a country code in this field to limit your search for duplicates to a specific country. If you are running the update for your home country, this field may be left blank. To enter a country code in this field, you can either type the code directly into the field or right click once in the field to select a code from a list of defined countries.
Zip/postal codes ___to___
You may enter a zip/postal code range in these fields so that your search will only include customer records whose zip/postal codes fall within that range. If you are entering a 'Postal code' range for a foreign country, you must also enter a 'Country' code.
Specifying 'Country' and/or 'Zip/postal' codes allows you to search the database a piece at a time, instead of scanning the entire database in a single session.
Minimum score for a "near" address match
Pairs of customers that have a score equal to or greater than the "near" match value will be displayed so that you can decide whether they really are the same person. Use caution when changing this value. If you set the minimum score for a "near" match too low, QuickFill will show you too many names. If you set it too high, however, QuickFill will not find many of the duplicate records in your database.
Minimum score for an "exact" address match
Pairs of customers that have a score equal to or greater than the "exact" match value will either be displayed so that you can decide whether they really are the same person or, if you select the 'Automatically merge exact matches?' field, these customers will be merged without being displayed. Use extreme caution when changing the value in this field; if you set it too low, you risk combining customer records for non-duplicates.
Automatically merge exact matches
Click once in this field so that a check mark appears in it and customers who score equal to or greater than the value for an "exact" address match will automatically be merged. Leave this field blank, and QuickFill will always ask you before combining customer records. The default for this field is to not automatically merge exact matches.
As with any update, you should always back up your database before you run the 'Merge duplicates' update.
Click here for more information on Filter screens.
After you are done filling in the filter, click on "OK" and a message box will appear with the following options:
Run it now exclusively, only lookup allowed
Run it now shared, all transactions allowed, much slower
Because the 'Merge duplicates' update requires your input for customers considered to be "near" matches, it may only be run in one of the "run now" modes, 'Run it now exclusively, only lookup allowed' or 'Run it now shared, all transactions allowed, much slower'.
Click here for details on options for running updates.
When you run the update, QuickFill will begin to search the database for duplicate customers, displaying them as they are located. For each pair of customers that is displayed, you may keep or edit either customer record as well as leave both records as they are by selecting one of the options displayed on the screen. You may stop the update at any point by holding down the Esc key.
The 'Merge duplicates' update also produces a report. Both the deleted and retained customers for each duplicate found are displayed in the report along with a total count of customers scanned, pairs checked, and customers merged.