Setting up Duplicate and Matching Rules in Salesforce

To avoid saving duplicate records, you must set up matching and duplicate rules within your Salesforce org. Cognism utilises whichever rules you have in place. This is to make sure we're adhering to each organisation's unique setup. 

Checking if you have active rules:

The Standard Salesforce Matching and Duplicate rules are usually strong enough with a few minor changes. Make sure that these are active by following the instructions below: 

• Go to ‘Setup’
• Search and go to ‘Matching Rules’
  
• Make sure the standard Salesforce matching rules are activated for each object
  (Lead, Contact, Account)
  
  
  • If not, click ‘Activate’ on the left-hand side
    
• Search and go to ‘Duplicate Rules’
  
• Make sure the standard Salesforce duplicate rules are activated for each object
  (Lead, Contact, Account)
  
  
  • If not, click into each rule and press 'Activate' at the top of the page
    

Strengthening the Rules:

We recommend pulling in both the Lead & Contact Matching Rules under the Lead & Contact Duplicates rules respectively.

Which Matching Rules to use:

For Accounts, the only matching rule you will typically need is the 'Standard Account Matching Rule' or alternative Account matching rule(s) you have in place. 

For Contacts:

• Go into the Contact Duplicate Rule by clicking the Rule Name
  
• You want to match Contacts against both Leads & Contacts (this is recommended but each organisation is unique). Check which matching rules are in the duplicate rule and add any that are missing:
  
  
  • To add matching rules to the duplicate rules, click 'Edit' at the top of the page
  • Scroll down to the 'Matching Rules' section
  • Click 'Add Rule' 
  • If adding the Contact Matching Rule, choose 'Contacts' in the Compare Contacts With dropdown and select the Contact Matching Rule. If adding the Lead Matching Rule, choose 'Leads' in the Compare Contacts With dropdown and select the Lead Matching Rule
    
  • Make sure to save any changes

For Leads:

• Go into the Lead Duplicate Rule by clicking the Rule Name
  
• You want to match Leads against both Leads & Contacts (this is recommended but each organisation is unique). Check which matching rules are in the duplicate rule and add any that are missing:
  
  
  • To add matching rules to the duplicate rules, click 'Edit' at the top of the page
  • Scroll down to the 'Matching Rules' section
  • Click 'Add Rule' 
  • If adding the Contact Matching Rule, choose 'Contacts' in the Compare Leads With dropdown and select the Contact Matching Rule. If adding the Lead Matching Rule, choose 'Leads' in the Compare Leads With dropdown and select the Lead Matching Rule
    
  • Make sure to save any changes

Action On Create:

For all three objects, we would recommend editing the duplicate rules so that the Action On Create is 'Block'

• You can check this by clicking into each duplicate rule (click on the rule name)
  
  • To change the action, press 'Edit' at the top of the page
  • Under 'Actions', click the dropdown next to 'Action On Create' and choose 'Block' 
    
  • Make sure to save any changes
  • Repeat for all relevant objects

Alternative Matching Rules:

If you have previously deleted or do not want to use the Standard Salesforce Rules, we have some alternative recommendations below:

Matching Rules

Contact & Lead:

1. Email Address = Exact
2. First Name = Exact
3. Last Name = Exact
4. Title = Fuzzy
5. Company Name = Fuzzy

Add filter logic “(1) OR (2 AND 3 AND 4 AND 5)”

Account:

1. Account Name = Fuzzy
2. Website = Exact

Add filter logic “1 OR 2”