Considerations regarding duplicate management

We can have up to 5 active duplicate rules per object and up to 3 matching rules on each duplicate rule (and 1 matching rule per object).

We can also have up to 5 matching rules (active or not) per object, a total of 25 matching rules (active) on all objects, and up to 100 matching rules (active or not). A matching rule can have only one lookup relationship.

Global picklists are not supported in duplicate rules and custom picklists cannot be used in cross-object duplicate rules.

Another interesting behavior is that a duplicate rule, when editing a record, is triggered only if the user changes one of the fields mapped on the rule.

When duplicate rules won’t run, the following happens:

• Records are created with the Quick Create tool (for more details, go to https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=basics_creating_records_with_quick_create.htm&type=5) or using Community Self-Registration.
• Leads are converted to accounts or contacts and the User Apex Lead Convert flag is disabled (you can find more details at https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?amp;language=en_US&id=000214462&type=1).
• The record is restored with the Undelete button.
• The records are manually merged.
• If we have rule conditions on related objects and the corresponding lookup field is not filled in on the record we are creating/updating, the rule is not triggered.
• The duplicate alert is not shown when records are imported with data import tools or through Salesforce APIs (as with Data Loader) or a person account is converted into a business account (and the new business account matches another duplicate).
• If two potential duplicate records are saved simultaneously, they are compared only with records already on the database, so users are not alerted/blocked. If the Report option is set on the rule, then duplicate record sets will correctly include simultaneous records.

For a detailed list of standard duplicate rules, refer to Salesforce Help at https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=duplicate_rules_standard_rules.htm&type=5.
 For a detailed list of standard matching rules, refer to Salesforce Help at https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=matching_rules_standard_rules.htm&type=5.
 For some interesting matching rule examples, refer to Salesforce Help at https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=matching_rule_matching_examples.htm&type=5.

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about duplicate management on standard and custom objects to increase data consistency across our CRM database.

We used matching rules to define the objects, fields, and algorithms to be checked when detecting duplicates; duplicate rules to alert or block users when creating new account, contact, or lead records; and duplicate jobs to make an org-wide analysis of all duplicates for standard and custom objects. Now you know another great instrument to ensure data integrity for your business data.

In the next chapter, we’ll deal with content management to organize, share, search, and manage files within our org.