Duplicate data is the antagonist that stops you from making efforts to communicate with your customers from your database. However, most businesses fail to understand the graveness in duplication until a data mining or report generation is carried out.
What is the use of data when you can’t put it to use to add value to your business?
Bad data in CRM could be a result of both process-failure or manpower-failure.
Thankfully, Dynamics 365 has some path-breaking tools that can help keep data clean. Here are the best practices for businesses to overcome their biggest roadblocks in meeting CRM goals on Microsoft Dynamics 365.
Chalk Out a Plan
It’s best to zero down upon some guidelines for data entry to prevent CRM data duplication. All individuals involved will need to be equipped with these guidelines to standardize the data entered. Standardizing punctuations, usage of jargons and abbreviations further restricts duplication in cases when different users enter the same information differently.
Duplicate Detection Rules
Laying down proper MS Dynamics CRM duplicate detection rules can have a great impact in minimizing duplication and bad data. However, it’s a must to fully understand how to build the rules.
When the D 365 duplicate detection rules are enabled, the application sends out a warning each time a user creates or edits records, every time a duplicate record is detected. Most users choose to ignore the warning and save the record anyway. Hence the rules will need to be defined in a way that all teams are on the same page while being aware of how the data will be used later.
Pay Attention to User Training
Users need to be extensively trained around their course of action each time they see duplication alert.
Equipping users with instructions on how to deal with duplicate warnings and knowledge around fixing duplicates by merging existing duplicates or avoiding the creation of a new duplicate record altogether. This avoids data loss and orphaned records.
Avoid Incomplete Records
It’s a frequent phenomenon to notice employees leave out some fields in a hurry, resulting in incomplete records. Hence, in cases with multiple-field verification, it is best to make sure all the fields are complete to take full advantage.
Using rules on Dynamics 365, you can stop incomplete records from being created. This is bound to put an end to data duplication at the time of entry.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive
Smartness lies in being proactive while setting up Duplicate Detection Rules on Dynamics CRM and not only reacting when you are in a soup. You will realise that running duplicate detection is a recurring job and not a one-time event. Scheduling automated and periodic CRM Duplicate Detection checks to make data management a seamless affair is the right way to go.
Try Third-Party Tools
Integrate third-party tools to Dynamics 365 in order to manage an efficient CRM/ERP system. A third-party add-on may be the only software option for detecting and removing duplicate records.
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