How does the contact/company duplicate check feature work?
When creating new client and contact records, either via the Client Merlin or via their respective data entry forms, there is a duplicate search feature that you can use to ensure that the new client or contact record you are creating is not a duplicate of an existing client or contact record. This feature is accessible at any time by clicking the duplicate search icon that is available on all client and contact data entry forms, as shown in the next graphic.
In addition to manually using the duplicate search feature, a system administrator can also configure WebCATS to automatically perform a duplicate search every time a new client or contact record is created. This configuration is performed in WinCATS’ global configuration settings, as shown in the next graphic.
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When a duplicate search is performed for client records, WebCATS returns client records belonging to any center that have:
- A similar company name (i.e. the first three letters match) and/or…
- An identical company phone number
When a duplicate search is performed for contact records, WebCATS returns contact records belonging to any center that have:
- A similar last and first name (i.e. the first three letters of the last name and the first letter of the first name match) and/or…
- An identical e-mail address
When returning possible duplicates, WebCATS lets you decide how restrictive the duplicate search should be. At the top of the return duplicate screen, you are provided with several search options, each one getting progressively less restrictive. The option highlighted is the one that WebCATS is currently respecting, but you can narrow or widen your search by selecting an option above or below it. As shown in the following graphic, it is the asterisk (*) wildcard, which substitutes for any combination of characters, that determines how restrictive the search is.
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