How to Allow or Prevent Duplicate Contacts

Created by PX Marketing, Modified on Tue, 19 Aug at 3:20 PM by PX Marketing

Overview

Duplicate contacts can clutter your system, create confusion, and impact reporting accuracy. PXME allows you to control whether duplicates are permitted and how they’re detected. By adjusting your deduplication preferences, you can keep your database clean and reliable while still allowing flexibility when needed.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Access Deduplication Settings

Navigate to Settings > Business Profile > Contact Deduplication Preferences.

2. Adjust Duplicate Preferences

Allow Duplicate Contact = ON
- Duplicates are permitted.
- Not recommended for most practices.
Allow Duplicate Contact = OFF
- Duplicate detection is enforced.

3. Configure Duplicate Detection

If duplicates are not allowed, choose how PXME should check for duplicates:

Primary Field – Email or Phone Number.
Optional Secondary Factor – Add an extra layer of detection for higher accuracy.

Important Notes

If Allow Duplicate Contact is ON, bulk imports may return errors since the system permits duplicates but cannot reconcile them during import.
Deduplication prevents new duplicates at the system level, but it does not automatically clean up existing duplicates.
To clean up existing duplicates, export your contact list, deduplicate externally, and re-import the corrected file.

FAQs

Q1: What is the "Allow Duplicate Contact" setting?
It determines if PXME allows duplicate contact records in your account.

Q2: What happens if I bulk import contacts with “Allow Duplicate Contact” turned ON?
Imports may fail or return errors since the system permits duplicates but cannot resolve conflicts automatically.

Q3: How can I configure duplicate detection if duplicates are not allowed?
You can set PXME to detect duplicates by Email, Phone Number, or both. You can also add a secondary detection factor for more precision.

Q4: Can I filter duplicate contacts in my list?
Not directly in PXME. A workaround is to export, clean the list externally (using Excel or Google Sheets), then re-import the clean data.

Q5: Where can I find more information about importing contacts?
See the article: How to Import/Export Contacts Using a Single CSV File.