Navigating Duplicates in Sugar Market: Insights

Overview

In Sugar Market, managing duplicate records requires an understanding of system constraints, particularly with the use of email addresses as unique identifiers. While the system allows for duplicate records, it's designed with specific operational considerations in mind. This can present challenges for organizations needing to maintain separate records with the same email address. This article explores how duplicates are handled across various Sugar Market modules, offering insights into the system's capabilities and helping you make informed decisions for your business operations.

Handling Duplicates: Challenges and Strategies

Forms and Contact Management:

• Process Overview: When a form is submitted:
  • If the email address is new, a fresh record is created.
  • If the email exists, the existing record is updated.
  • If multiple records share the same email, the first record found (by the last updated date) is updated.
• Potential Issues: This could lead to undesirable overwriting. For instance, if Joe Smith (jsmith@aol.com) submits a form, but Justin Smith with the same email exists in the database, Justin's record might unintentionally be overwritten with Joe's information.

Custom Reports and Filtering:

• Functionality: Custom reports allow for specific record filtering based on defined criteria.
• Example: Suppose there are records:
  • ContactID 123 Joe Smith jsmith@aol.com Party 1
  • ContactID 124 Jane Smith jsmith@aol.com Party 2
  • ContactID 125 Justin Smith jsmith@aol.com Party 1
  • Filtering for "Party 2" pulls Jane Smith's record only.
  • However, using such a report in campaigns reverts to using just the email address for deduplication, ignoring other specified filters.

Email Campaigns and Merge Tags:

• Process: Email campaigns primarily use the email address as the key identifier.
• Custom Reports: If a custom report filters specific records, the email campaign still defaults to using email addresses, potentially ignoring intended targets.
  • Example: If a campaign is set for "Party 2" (Jane Smith), but the email address jsmith@aol.com is used, the system might pull Joe Smith's data instead due to database query order.

• Solution: To ensure accuracy when using a custom report in a campaign:

  • Include the ContactID column in your custom report to specify the exact records you intend to target.
  • Ensure that each targeted contact appears only once in your custom report with the ContactID column included. This setup guarantees that the campaign will deliver messages only to the specific ContactIDs listed, regardless of shared email addresses.

  For more detailed instructions on setting up your campaigns with custom reports, refer to our guide on Creating Email Campaigns.

  This solution helps mitigate issues related to duplicate email addresses and ensures that your campaign communications reach the correct individuals as defined by your specific segmentation and targeting criteria within Sugar Market.

Handling Historical Data and CRM Sync:

• Historical Data: All interactions are linked through the email address, displaying identical historical data for all duplicates.
• CRM Sync: Updates are first checked by ID and then by email, potentially updating an unintended record in the CRM if multiple entries share an email.

CRM Sync - Pushing Custom Entities:

• Example: If multiple records share the email jsmith@aol.com and one completes a form, Sugar Market might push the form completion data to the first record it finds, not necessarily the one that completed the form.

Duplicates with Importing:

• By default, importing into Sugar Market uses the email address as the key column. However, you can define the key column or add multiple key columns when importing, which serves specific purposes for handling duplicates effectively.
• Further Details: For a comprehensive understanding of importing and managing duplicates, please refer to our detailed guide on Detecting Duplicates on Import.

Conclusion

Effectively managing duplicates in Sugar Market is crucial for ensuring data accuracy and operational efficiency. This guide provides transparency about how our platform handles duplicates across different modules, helping you understand the system's functionalities and optimize your business strategies. While Sugar Market strives to offer robust solutions, we are continually working to enhance our platform to better meet our clients' diverse needs. Your feedback is invaluable as we work towards these improvements, so let us know your thoughts!