Data quality is probably one of the biggest issues that companies are struggling with. The enhanced lead duplicate detection feature is something you should definitely look into in order to get better data quality.
Most people are familiar with the traditional duplication rule that you can set up as an Administrator. This traditional way of duplicate detection is more “trigger-based,” I would say. When a record is created or updated, it will check against the rules that are published. Yes, of course, you do have duplicate detection jobs as more proactive help than the other examples.
The new feature does come with new user experiences. Within the list views, you do have the option to select a record and select View Duplicates in order to view the potential duplicates.
When opening a record, the yellow banner will appear at the top if there are possible duplicates being identified. This is allowing you to take immediate action on this if needed.
The biggest difference between the classic duplicate detection job and the new lead duplicate detection feature is the AI model. This does make this feature a lot more powerful than the traditional option, which allows you to do more “fuzzy matching” kind of ways.
| Rule | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Same email address | The leads are displayed as duplicates when they contain the same email address, even though other values such as name and mobile number are different. | The leads Kenny Smith and John Doe have the email address employee@contoso.com. The duplicate detection feature displays the leads Kenny Smith and John Doe as duplicates, based on this rule. |
| Same phone number | The leads are displayed as duplicates when they contain the same phone number, even though other values such as name and email address are different. | The leads Kenny Smith and John Doe have the same phone member, +1234567890. The duplicate detection feature displays the leads Kenny Smith and John Doe as duplicates, based on this rule. |
| Similar name and company name | If the leads have a similar name and company, they’re displayed as duplicates. The AI model can identify the duplicate leads even when the name and company sound similar. | For example, Regina Murphy from Contoso and Regina Merphy from Contoso.inc. In this example, the spelling of the names is different but the names sound similar. |
| Similar name and the same email domain | If the leads have a similar name and the same email domain, they’re displayed as duplicates. The AI model can identify the duplicate leads even when the names sound similar. | For example, Regina Murphy, Regina@contoso.com, and Regina Merphy, Manager@contoso.com. In this example, the spelling of the names is different, but the names sound similar and the email domain is the same (contoso.com). |
Microsoft source: Manage duplicate leads | Microsoft Learn
How to enable the new lead duplicate detection feature?
In order to configure the new lead duplicate detection feature, you can follow the next steps:
- Open the Sales Hub app
- Change the area in the bottom left settings and navigate to App Settings
- Within the Data Improvement section, select Duplicate Detection
- Switch the feature On.
Once enabled, it will immediately start in the background to analyze Dataverse to identify duplicate leads. One thing to bear in mind, if you do have duplicate detection rules active for the Lead record, these need to be unpublished in order to get this to work.
