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PowerMerge User Guide

Security Roles

Every user who would like to use PowerMerge will need to have the PowerMerge User security role assigned to them.  Users who you wish to be able to view the PowerMerge logs will need the PowerMerge Admin security role assigned to them.  System Administrators will be able to use PowerMerge without any additional security roles assigned.

PMerg roles


Using PowerMerge

When the time comes that you need to clean up your database, either after a large import of records or after a period of time has passed in which multiple records have been created, PowerMerge will be ready for you.

Navigate to the PowerPack section in CRM and select PowerMerge from the submenu. Once you select PowerMerge a wizard will pop open. When the PowerMerge wizard opens you will be able to select the Entity and the Entity View you would like to use to clean up duplicates. You also have a few merge options:

  • Default: Leaving the option as default will merge records from 'latest to original', as described below
  • Original records into Latest Record : Choosing this option will merge all older records into the most recently created record (last created wins).
  • Latest records into Original Record : Choosing this option will merge latest created records into the first created record (first created wins).

Note: If any of the "Merge based on" options are grayed out, you will need to add those fields as columns in the view you've selected to merge. Then those options will become available to select.

Selecting the Count Duplicate button will search the selected entity view and give you a count of how many duplicates were detected. Once you have counted the duplicates you can select Start Merging this will take all duplicate records and merge them. No information on the parent record will be replaced, the only way that it will change is if there is a blank field. Nothing ever gets overwritten. The merged record will be deactivated, not deleted, so if for some reason you need to look back at the record, or "undo" the merge you can.

PowerMerge-03

If for some reason you need to "undo" a merge, you could do an advanced find for all inactive accounts/contacts/leads modified today (or the day you performed the merge).


How records are merged

When two records are de-duplicated we merge the two records together. In the example below we have ‘FORM 1’ and ‘FORM 2’ we can see that they are both for CRM University but FORM 2 seems to have some additional information. Let's assume we're going to merge FORM 2 into FORM 1. PowerMerge will not replace any information on FORM 1; it will only add to blank fields. So, for example, FORM 2 has information for the company’s website, this will be added to FORM 1 since there is no pre-existing information for this field on FORM 1. You can also see that the address format on both forms differ – once merged, the form will still show FORM 1’s formatting for address.

PowerMerge

Your end result will look like the record below. If for some reason you need to access a record that has been merged, be assured that it has only been deactivated. PowerMerge never deletes records, it only deactivates them so you will never lose information.

PowerMerge


PowerMerge Logs

After a merge is completed, you can find more information about what happened in the PowerMerge Log. To find the log, do an advanced find for the “PowerMergeLogger” entity, and click Results. This will show you all of the details of what happened when you merged the records.


Using PowerMerge in new UCI

PowerMerge is compatible with the Dynamics 365 online UCI. Make sure you have the UCI compatible version downloaded from our website and installed in your CRM.

Once you have PowerMerge installed you can to add it to your sitemap, along with the entities and web resources the solution provides by editing an app and adding the components in your app designer.

 


Uninstalling PowerMerge

Uninstall as usual, by navigating in CRM to the solutions list, selecting the PowerMerge solution and deleting.  Deleting the solution will not remove any of the records that have been merged.

Uninstalling the solution does not unsubscribe the solution.  If you're discontinuing use of the add-on, you must first unsubscribe in the solution.


Thank you for your interest in PowerMerge, should you choose to subscribe you will be charged $1/enabled CRM user/month. If you have any questions or run into any issues with PowerMerge, our friendly support team is here to help!

 

Support

We’re always here to help. Click one of the links below to see a list of frequently asked questions, view the entire PowerPack knowledgebase or contact a PowerPack Pro.