Preventing Duplicate Record Creations

Duplicate Records are never good, simply put they are unwanted clutter and can even make information on Reports / Charts inaccurate. Whilst a User should check for the pre-existing Record, this may not happen.

Therefore below is a way you can build in an automated duplicate check in the context of finding a duplicate contact in a Contacts, Database-type App but this method can be applied to other use cases, Audits, other Database-type Apps etc... 

Please view this video for a visual walkthrough.

Fields Required:

• Email [Email] - Original entry field for the Contacts Email, visible in Records
• Text [LookUpDuplicate] - With expression: lookup('Contacts','[Email]','Email','Email','',true) - This will return the pre-existing contact's email if found or nothing if not
• Bit [DuplicateBit] - With expression: if(len([LookUpDuplicate]) > 1, true, false)

Workflow Required (only for Auto-Archiving mentioned below):

• Record Created - Archive Action with Filter Node [DuplicateBit] = true
• Note: The field that the duplicate check is run against, in this instance [Email] should be a 'Required Field' in order for the Workflow to prevent the creation of duplicates

Optional Additions:

Please view this video for a visual walkthrough of the additional options.

• Automatic Archiving of duplicate Records
• Report Base Filter to exclude duplicates