Prevent Duplicate Records in Zoho

I know, I know! It’s annoying to think that you have several new leads only to find that a huge percentage of them are duplicates. You may find duplicate Leads, Accounts or Contacts in your Zoho CRM system – but do not fret. I’m here to help. Let’s not only get rid of those pesky duplicates, but let’s prevent them from ever happening again.

How to Deduplicate Leads/Contacts/Accounts

First, go to the Zoho CRM module in which you wish to remove duplicates.

In the top right corner of the screen, click on the icon

Then choose ‘Deduplicate Leads’ (or Contacts or Accounts)

Options will be displayed. Choose up to 3 fields to use to identify duplicates. This can include email, phone, or any field that is unique in your system. Click on ‘Find And Merge Duplicates’.

A box will appear with instructions on how to proceed. Be sure to read this message, then click ‘Yes, procced’.

If no duplicates are found, you will receive the following message:

If duplicates are found, you will be prompted to ‘Resolve now’. Duplicates will be listed based on the field identified as a duplicate. Click on ‘View’ beside each record to choose which data entry you’d like to keep/discard for each field. There could be one duplicate or several duplicates for each record listed. Click ‘Merge’.

A warning will display letting you know that the merge cannot be undone once you click ‘Merge now’. Click ‘I understand, Merge now’.

To Prevent Duplicate Records

To prevent duplicates in the first place, go to the Settings in the top right corner of the screen. Under Customization, click on ‘Modules and Fields’. Hover over the module and click on ‘Duplicate Check Preference’. A box will appear asking you to agree. Click on ‘Save’.

Then go into the respective module and make sure the field is set to unique. For example, under Settings > Customization > Modules and Fields > Leads > Layouts > Edit Layout, go to the ‘Email’ field, click on the icon and check ‘Do not allow duplicate values’.

Doing this will force the CRM to check all email fields before allowing an email address to be added anywhere in the system.