How to handle duplicates

In this article

Dealing with duplicate records makes data management difficult. Duplicate entries clutter your contact lists, create confusion, and increase the number of transactions when sending emails — which may even lead to spamming your customers. Manually controlling duplicates is not realistic, so Albato provides a built-in tool to ensure only unique data enters your automations.

This article explains the four duplicate-handling scenarios available in Albato.

The Duplicate Handling Tool

The Duplicate Handling tool is available inside certain action steps. If you do not see the icon, the app does not support duplicate processing.

Before configuring duplicate search, you must first fill in the fields in the action step. Duplicate detection can only be configured for fields that are already populated in the step settings.

Scenarios

Before configuring how your automation should handle duplicates, choose one of the available scenarios. Each scenario defines what Albato will do when it detects (or does not detect) an existing record in the receiving system.

Scenario 1. Do not check for duplicates, always create a new record

Albato sends a request to create a new record without performing any additional checks. Errors may occur if the receiving system requires unique data.

Scenario 2. Do not create a record if a duplicate is found

Albato checks whether the incoming data matches an existing record in the receiving system. If a duplicate is found, no new record is created, and the data from the existing record becomes available for the next steps of the automation. If no duplicate is found, Albato proceeds with creating a new record as usual.

Scenario 3. Update an existing record if a duplicate is found, otherwise create a new record

Albato searches for an existing record. If a duplicate is found, Albato updates the record with the incoming data. If no duplicate is found, a new record is created.

Example

When a Facebook lead form is submitted, a new CRM record is created with standard fields such as name, phone number, and email. If the same customer interacts with you again, additional data from the ad system can be automatically added to their CRM card — updating existing fields where necessary.

Scenario 4. Only update an existing record if a duplicate is found

Albato updates the record only when a duplicate exists. If no duplicate is found, Albato takes no action in this step and continues running the automation.

This scenario is similar to Scenario 3 but does not create new records.

Search Parameters

After selecting a scenario, you can choose the fields Albato will use to search for duplicates. These fields should be unique identifiers, such as deal ID, client ID, phone number, or email.

If multiple fields are selected, Albato uses a logical AND, all values must match for a duplicate to be detected.

If you need an OR condition (at least one match), use the Router tool instead.

Field Update Logic

Configure how fields should be updated when a duplicate is found:

• Keep the Current value if you want to preserve the data already stored in the receiving system.
• Remove the Current value tag and insert a new value from a previous step to update the field.
• Add a new value alongside Current value to append information.
• Remove the Current value and leave the field empty to clear it in the receiving system.

Click Save to apply the update rules.