How to Merge Duplicate Accounts & Contacts in Salesforce Lightning

The differences are stark between the Salesforce Classic and the Salesforce Lightning Experience when it comes to duplicates records. In Salesforce Lightning duplicate alerts are displayed on the record home page of an account and contact. These duplicate records are identified using matching rules, which are applied to individual records or duplicate jobs. In contrast, Salesforce Classic, duplicate records are identified via manual searches. The following steps should be followed for both Account and Contacts matching and merging in Salesforce Lightning.

Standard Account Matching Rule: The standard account matching rule identifies duplicate accounts using match keys, a matching equation, and matching criteria. It’s activated by default.

Below are a few examples of matching equations for accurate matches or finding duplicity on an account, the new or edited record must include same value in the Account Name field and either the City or the ZIP Code field.

example:(Account Name AND Billing Street)OR (Account Name AND City AND State)OR (Account Name AND ZIP)OR (Account Name AND Phone)OR (Website AND Phone)OR (Website AND Billing Street)

If a user wants to see all standard account matching rules by using match keys, a matching equation, and matching criteria that are available just search "Matching Rules" in the quick find box.

Merging Duplicate Accounts in Salesforce Lightning: There are few things that a user must know before merging accounts in Salesforce for example when a user tries to merge two accounts and they have a relationship with a similar contact. Salesforce will show a message "These accounts have the same related contact. Open the related contact record and remove redundant account–contact relationships. Then try merging again."

Here are the steps that a user needs to follow if merging accounts in Salesforce Lightning:

When you are viewing a specific record, if Salesforce detects a duplicate record, the duplicate component will display as seen below:

After clicking on "view duplicates", the user can select up to three records to merge by selecting the checkboxes for the records.

The next screen allows the user to make a few different choices about how to combine the information from the two records. The last step is to select one account record as the master record and choose the desired field values that the user wishes to keep using the radio button. Click on Next option.

Now just click Merge Accounts and the user is done.

Standard Contact Matching Rule:

The standard contact matching rule identifies duplicate contacts using match keys, a matching equation, and matching criteria. They are activated by default. Here are a few examples of matching equations for accurate matches or find duplicity on a contact, the new or edited record must include same value in the First Name, Last Name fields and in other fields for example:(First Name AND Last Name AND Title AND Account Name)OR (First Name AND Last Name AND Email)OR (First Name AND Last Name AND Phone AND Account Name)OR (First Name AND Last Name AND Mailing Street AND (City OR ZIP OR Phone))OR (First Name AND Last Name AND Mailing Street AND Title)OR (First Name AND Last Name AND Title AND Email)OR (First Name AND Last Name AND Phone)

If the user wants to see all standard contact matching rules, for example, using match keys, a matching equation, and matching criteria then the user can see all the rules by searching "Matching Rules" in the quick find box.

Merging Duplicate Contacts in Salesforce Lightning: Here are the steps that a user needs to follow if merging contacts in Salesforce Lightning: When the user is viewing a specific record, if Salesforce detects any duplicate records, the duplicate component will display as seen below:

After clicking on "view duplicates", the user can select up to three records to merge by selecting the checkboxes for the records.

The next screen allows the user to make a few different choices about how to combine the information from these two records. The last step is to select one contact record as the master record and choose the desired field values that the user wishes to keep using the radio button. Click on Next option.

Now just click on Merge Contact and the user is done.

Merging an account or contact in Salesforce is not difficult. All that a user must do is to follow the simple steps given above because reducing duplicate records in the Salesforce database is one way to improve data quality.