[Mica]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Gulka

They can't prove anyhting without a body.

He's right. You can't argue with logic like that.

[EduardoG]

I have quite a few duplicates to get through, and I didn't realize the extent of the changes needed for each merger. This thread does give me a good idea of what to check to make sure it's actually done.
Well, I better get to it!

[amy]

I removed 1,500 dupes last month. That was fun. Coffee and mp3 player just about got me through it.

Found this really handy: there's a plugin you can use to delete addresses. I used it to get rid of loads of duplicate addresses. You give the addresses a unique Address Type (ie. 'remove') then run the plugin to remove addresses with that type. So satisfying to get rid of loads of bad data in one go. Now if they'd just write plugins to remove dupe ConsCodes, phones, attributes...

You can get the plugin from BB knowledgebase, just search for address plugin.

[david_moore_501@msn.com]

If you have the nerve.

Do a backup and make sure it is valid or will restore.

You must create a header file from admin, in Import. All fields.

Export the entire database in an excel file. Sort by the suspect dupes, address, constituent code, etc. Do the editing. and then import back to Blackbaud. If you don't know how to do an export, I suggest you talk to support and they can walk you through it. I have 30 dupes out of 57,000 records, and they are dupes because of the first name is like "Memphis".

You would need to run your dupe report and make sure they are actually dupes before you do a merge also.

There is a lot more detail in doing this. I'm just giving you a summary idea on how to get rid of your dupes.
Get out your manual and go to import. It will give you the field names for your import file. When you do the import file you must create an import id, or export the one that resides in the database. This sounds like a lot of time to do this but it will be much shorter than 90 hrs.

Good Luck.

[EduardoG]

That's some good advice, David Moore. I'll have to set aside some time and try this out.
My 1 question: how would RE know that you got rid of the duplicate records?

[DavidZ]

Thank you everyone for downloading IDLookup. I have updated the installation instructions as I have been told that there have been some difficulties installing IDLookup. I should make it clear that this is a demo of the full version. It is tied to the sample database.

The instructions can be found on my blog:

RE-Decoded » Blog Archive » Installing IDLookup

If you still have problems installing it then please do not hesitate to contact me.

David

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidZ

I wrote a plug-in for charities in UK (but it could be used by other charities too) to help this with this problem. It is a unique record number lookup. This started out as a way to lookup the import ids and constituent ids of records that had been sent to a third party. The third party forgot to return the list with the ids that were supplied to them!

It was then realized that this tool could be used to check for duplicates before importing a cold list into RE. It uses a variety of fields to check for duplicates. I am including a screen shot that will give you an idea. It was set up for UK addresses (in as much as the post code format contains two halves) but could easily be adapted for other address matching.

If anyone is interested in this tool then please do not hesitate to contact me.

David

[DavidZ]

I just wanted to let everyone know that this plugin has now been updated with new features. These include:

1. Matching on any number of characters for first, last and organization name as well as address line 1
2. The ability to filter the results so that only matches from specific constituent codes or records that have specific constituent attributes are included.
3. Better support for databases with Windows authentication.

As previously IDLookup is available from:

Zeidman Development | Downloads

David