Record Deduplication is the act of finding and combining duplicate records. Duplicate records happen, both deliberately and accidentally, and cleaning them up can take a lot of effort. The deduplication feature in Rex lets you quickly scrub your database of conflicting records.
The Combine Duplicates function is available for Properties and Contacts. There are three ways to combine records: from an individual contact record, from the Contacts or Properties list view, or in bulk from the Admin area. All three are covered below.
Please Note: Combining records is permanent and cannot be undone. Always confirm you have selected the correct primary record before you combine.
If you are trying to remove a duplicate listing (rather than a contact or property), see I've Created a Duplicate Listing - How Do I Delete It? instead.
Find Possible Duplicates (Contacts Only)
The Find Possible Duplicates function is available for Contacts only (Rex does not let you enter duplicate properties). There are two ways to reach it:
- Find Possible Duplicates (Contact Record view)
- Find Possible Duplicates (Contact List view)
Rex will search your entire database for records with a matching name, phone number and email address, then give you the option of merging the selected records.
Follow the steps below to find possible duplicates and deduplicate them:
- Open the contact record
- From the top, go to More > Find Possible Duplicates
- Select from the options available (Name, Phone and/or Email), then click Search
- Please Note: This is an 'and' search, so the more options you choose, the less likely it is to find duplicates (unless the records share the same name, email and phone number).
- All the matching records will now be displayed
- Select the primary record, tick the 'include in merge' checkbox under each duplicate you want to merge, then click Combine Records
Rex will combine the selected records and add all the information into the primary record. You will see a summary of the records merged and the new primary record.
Go to the primary record and review the merged information. You may need to remove some details and tidy up the record, for example cleaning up duplicated tags (see System Tags: Adding and Removing Tags from Records).
Please Note: If two contacts look like duplicates but are actually a couple or a household sharing details, you may want a single multi-name record rather than a merge. See Managing Multi-Name Contact Records.
Combine Duplicates
Rex also lets you combine any number of records manually. You can do this from the Contacts list view and the Properties list view.
Once you have filtered down your contact or property records to find the ones you need, select the records you want to merge and click the Combine Records button in the dropdown menu. You will then follow the same process as above to merge the records.
Record Deduplication in the Admin Area
You can also do all of this in bulk using the Record Deduplication section in the Admin area. This option is only available for users with the required permissions.
- From the left side menu, go to Admin > Record Deduplication
- Select the match criteria, then click Show Duplicates
- Click Resolve on any of the results
- The records will now be displayed. Select the primary record, tick the checkbox for the records you want to merge, then click Combine Records
Please Note: As with Find Possible Duplicates, the match criteria use an 'and' search, so the more criteria you choose, the fewer matches you will see.
Things to Know Before You Combine Records
- All "Combine Records" lists are shown in order of their creation date, so the first entry is always the oldest in the system.
- The record that the "Combine Records" dialogue was launched from is chosen by default as the primary record.
Please Note: If you combine Property records that have currently published listings attached to them, all of those listings will merge onto the one Property record. This could cause issues with your current listings, so please take care when combining properties.