If you’ve ever imported company and contact data into ConnectWise, you’ve probably noticed it provides limited support for dealing with duplicate records. Unless a company’s name matches letter-for-letter, the software won’t catch it.
Having duplicate companies and contacts with ConnectWise complicates your marketing and sales efforts. Your messages may go to the wrong person. And prospects are turned off by receiving dupes or improperly addressed communications.
It also causes confusion throughout your company. Sales people may not know who’s responsible for an account, and it wastes their time trying to determine which information is accurate.
Too often, companies end up having to start over by purchasing a new list rather than taking advantage of the data they already own.
The bottom line is, you can’t leverage the real power of ConnectWise if you don’t have confidence in the information inside it.
At NexNow we’ve solved this problem. We’ve built a solution that eliminates nearly all duplicate companies and contacts throughout ConnectWise. Our firm’s focus is helping companies like yours achieve more by extending the power of ConnectWise.
For the past five years we’ve been providing a number of data-related services to partners that uniquely positions us – when it comes to ConnectWise data – to be the most knowledge group outside of ConnectWise itself. This includes building custom reports and data feeds, app integrations, performing full ConnectWise database merges, and completing numerous data migration and conversions projects for partners worldwide.
The first tool that fully automates the de-duplication process
Here’s how it works:
- Duplication detection – We start by running specially developed code that intelligently detects and matches duplicate company records within your ConnectWise.
- Match validation – We work with you to validate the matches we’ve detected and help you determine which should of two company records should remain active.
- De-duplication – Once the match list is finalized, we perform all of the necessary backend database work to merge records throughout the system.
Once companies are fully de-duplicated, we repeat this process for contacts. The end result is the complete elimination of all duplicate companies and contacts that were detected.
Call for a custom consultation
Interested in learning more? Contact us to discuss how this service can benefit your company.
FAQs
Why can’t I just use ConnectWise’s built-in Company Merge tool in Mass Maintenance?
The Company Merge tool within Mass Maintenance doesn’t catch dupes; it only helps you manage the ones you find on your own. You first need to know which companies and contacts are duplicates of each other – and then you need to figure out which of the two records should remain active within the system. Neither of these is as easy or straightforward as you might think. Consider the first part – identifying duplicate companies. You can certainly scan your list of companies within ConnectWise looking for similar company names, but you’ll only catch a fraction of the duplicates that exist. Then, once you’ve identified duplicates, you then have to decide which of the two records should survive the merge. We’ve found this takes approximately 2 minutes per company. So, the advantage to what we’re offering is that it’s comprehensive and saves you a ton of time.
How do you know ConnectWise so well?
For the past five years we’ve providing a number of data-related services to partners that uniquely positions us – when it comes to ConnectWise data – to be the most knowledge group outside of ConnectWise itself. This includes building custom reports and data feeds, app integrations, performing full ConnectWise database merges, and completing data migration and conversions projects for numerous partners worldwide.
How do you determine whether two records are likely to represent the same company or contact?
We created a rules based program that mimics the way a human would search for dupes, except it’s a lot more efficient—and much faster! Our approach takes into consideration the information you have stored within ConnectWise to determine whether two company or contacts are likely to be the same as well as which of the two should survive the de-duplication process.
How accurate is your duplication detection?
Very accurate! The detection process is not only comprehensive but also intelligent. Meaning we’re able to identify nearly all of the duplicate records within ConnectWise – even those that, at first glance, don’t appear to be related at all – with a low number of false matches.
From a data perspective, what does the de-duplication process entail?
We first move all related or “child” records from the duplicate company or contact record to the record you’ve decided should remain active in the system. For companies this includes: contacts, addresses, opportunities and sales activities, tracks, service tickets, projects, agreements, invoices, configurations, documents – to name a few. Once all child records are moved, we then mark the duplicate company or contact as inactive.
Is it possible to limit which types of companies are de-duplicated?
Yes. We can limit the scope of the duplication detection and/or de-duplication to just a subset of companies, based on company type and/or status.
What sort of access into our systems do you need?
Our remote access document details everything we’d need as part of the de-duplication process.
What happens if something were to go wrong?
First, no data are ever removed from ConnectWise. Instead, we start by reassigning related records to the surviving company or contact and then we mark the company or contact as inactive within the database. As additional safety measures, we also:
- Run the entire company and contact de-duplication process using a copy of your production ConnectWise database restored into the Training instance of ConnectWise so you can work with and test the de-duplication process
- Take a backup of your ConnectWise database immediately before and after we perform the de-duplication
- Capture an audit trail of changes that are made within your database