Spring ’17 Salesforce Features

Back around the Summer ’16 release timeframe I wrote a post to clarify the potential of the standard Salesforce platform features related to master data management. This short post extends the content of that post to include the new features introduced in the Spring ’17 release.

Data.com Duplicate Management – Person Account Compatibility

Spring ’17 brings support for Person Accounts to Duplicate Management. Matching rules can be defined to identify duplicate instances across the Person Account dataset, Duplicate Rules then define the desired behaviour to apply. Duplicate Management provides robust protection against the introduction of new duplicate records through the Salesforce user interface, mobile apps or API. The functionality works on a record-by-record basis and provides no automation capabilities.

Data.com Duplicate Management – Potential Duplicates

As a Lightning Experience only feature it is now possible to view potential duplicates for a given existing record directly on the detail page. The potential duplicates can be highlighted via Toast message and/or card. The screenshot below shows both options. From the list of potential duplicates 3 records can be selected for manual merge. Note, Person Accounts can’t currently be merged in Lightning Experience, there are also known limitations in relation to records related to portal users.

The ability to detect potential duplicates outside of record create and edit scenarios should be very useful for many implementations with basic data management processes, i.e. no requirement for automation, low volume levels etc.

Mark Cane