I do a lot of migration projects, and clients always like to capture unique IDs from the old CRM in a field on the new Contact record.
Once all data is in the NPSP CRM, then the dupes start to rise to the top and so I introduce them to the Contact Merge app, but I get a lot of concern about "losing" the unique ID from the losing record.
Is anyone doing anything in Flow that might help me capture the unique ID value from the losing record and place it somewhere on the winning Contact? Is that possible?!
Thanks!
I have recently done this using a flow and a custom object I called "Duplicate ContactArchive"
Custom Object -
Duplicate Contact Archive
Record Name data type = Text
Fields - I have kept it very basic with just the standard fields plus a custom lookup field to a Contact called Contact_Master__c (to link the duplicate archive with the "winning" record)
Flow
Record Triggered Flow
Object: Contact
Trigger: A record is deleted
Optimize for: Before the record is deleted
Steps
- Get Records - Find Master Contact
- Get contact record with same first name/last name and other unique identifying features as the record being deleted (ie. whatever your duplicate matching rule is)
- Create Record - Create Duplicate Archive
- Create a record where
- Contact_Master__c = Contact from Find Master Contact
- Name = (in my case) $Record>Client ID - but in your case it would be the unique identifier from your losing record.
- Create a record where
What does this do?
- Creates a record that displays in a related list on the "winning record" details of duplicates that were merged
- As unique id has been set as record name, it is very easy to identify and find in searches, reports etc
Why create a new custom object rather than just a field on the contact object?
- In my case, we may have multiple duplicates of the one contact, meaning a single field just wouldn't do.
- Having a custom object to store these archived duplicates allows me to keep as many duplicated record details as necessary
- This also allows you to keep any other details from the losing record that might be relevant to you (say they have a unique ID plus a donor id and you need both stored)
- This also allows me to search for any related duplicate archives in other flows
- eg. If I am running a flow to create or update customers based on their unique ID, I can search for customers with the id, if none are found I can search for duplicate archives where the name = unique id, if found I can then update the master contact from that record.
I hope that helps :)
- Get Records - Find Master Contact
