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finding contacts with different email addresses

I have a membership database where we import information that includes updates on our contacts, via .csv from another system. If a contact already exists in our contacts table (ie email address exists) then we update the contact record. If the email address doesn't exist, we create a new contact record.

We have some users who use multiple email addresses in this external system, and when they do, we wind up with multiple contact records for them. I'm trying to figure out a way to easily flag these records. It seems like I should be able to do this with a contacts view, grouping by Firstname and Lastname and counting email addresses. I've tried a couple of approaches but can't seem to get a clean listing. Any ideas?
 

11 replies

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    • Fred
    • 2 wk ago
    • Reported - view

    how do you store the multiple email addresses for each contact? can you post a sample DB?

      • Dave_Airel
      • 2 wk ago
      • Reported - view

        not saving multiple emails per contact, the imports are causing duplicate contacts being created, one for each email address

    • Mel_Charles
    • 2 wk ago
    • Reported - view

    Hi Dave

    My approach in my databases is to have the contacts as a child form of the main customer table. In my case where a customer contact has several emails - there is usually are reason the contact is probably both a managing director and the finance director etc at the same time. Thus I use combined fields name/job role / id ref as "key fields" when batch updating. In terms of a view . I use a search box above the view to limited the view to just the names looking for etc. that way if they opt out I can grab them all in one go.

    If you pop a sample db up here Fred will give you answer faster than I can type the next paragraph !🤣🤣

      • Fred
      • 2 wk ago
      • Reported - view

       but my answers are not always complete like yours. 😉

    • Fred
    • 2 wk ago
    • Reported - view
     said:
    not saving multiple emails per contact, the imports are causing duplicate contacts being created, one for each email address

     Oh right at the import side.

    So the question is which email do you want to keep?

    Do you want people to update their email address through this process or do you want to just ignore any email changes?

      • Dave_Airel
      • 12 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Sorry, I thought I answered this yesterday. Let me explain the use case a bit better.

      Our non-profit uses a 3rd party system, mobilize.us, to promote events we're sponsoring. Folks can register to attend those events in mobilize, and after the event we export a .csv from mobilize and import it into our ninox DB. So we have no idea how someone has registered until the .csv is imported, and we use email address as the key field, so when this happens we wind up with a duplicate contact record.

      We haven't finalized a plan to deal with this, b/c we want to scope the problem first. Hence, the need to scan for duplicate email address and understand what's happening. So right now I'm stuck on a simple-ish way to see how many duplicates we currently have and to understand what's happening with those members.

      I hope this makes sense?

      • Dave_Airel
      • 12 days ago
      • Reported - view

       Quick update - I created a combined Lastname + Firstname field called Full_Name, then created a view with just the Full_Name and Email fields. I can group by the Full_Name field, but I'm stuck on how to either display only email counts (or sums) of >1, or at least to sort on the email count or sum. Probably something very simple but my head's bruised from pounding it against the wall. Would appreciate any guidance -- Thx.

      • Fred
      • 12 days ago
      • Reported - view

      is this in the import table or the contacts table?

      • Dave_Airel
      • 12 days ago
      • Reported - view

       In the Contacts table.

      I just exported my entire RSVP table into an excel file and did the review there (thank God for pivot tables), and I'm realizing that most of what I'm seeing is imported bad data (typos in names, email addresses ...) with a few scattered nicknames, alternate email address, etc. I think I'll just make the fixes I just ID'd in the database, then put a process in place to either review the import .csv before it's imported, and fix errors there, or import the .csv and review/fix in the StagingImport table. This is a relatively low volume application, probably won't ever have more than a thousand or so members so that'll be manageable ...

      So - I don't need this help anymore but thanks for jumping in ...

    • John_Schaffer
    • 12 days ago
    • Reported - view

    On a membership database for a neighborhood entertainment group many people have many email addresses, multiple mobile phones, etc.  We gave up trying to manage all of them and now just ask each person for their preferred email/phone number.  Then we just ask updatethat one email/phone number.  Has saved us some maintenance headaches and trying multiple contact points for each person.  I recognize this may not work for your case.

      • Dave_Airel
      • 11 days ago
      • Reported - view

      thx, John. I suspect this is where we’ll wind up too.

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  • 11 days agoLast active
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