Background
Lots of duplicate accounts get created in Salesforce for a variety of reasons and sometimes those duplicates should be combined into one account because they truly represent the same company and both of the duplicates were created by authorized employees at those companies AND each account record contains useful data.
Some ways duplicates are created:
At big companies, an account exists (and may have many contacts and history) but then another person at the company registers to take the BIA, which creates a new Account.
A company loses the BIA login information, so they simply create a new BIA login, which creates a new Account.
A B Lab employee creates an account to track a conversation they’re having without checking if the account already exists (or they check but don’t find it due to a spelling error or variation).
A Lead is converted to an Account and Contact in Salesforce and a new Account is created at that time rather than choosing an existing Account for the Contact.
RISKS
The big risk: Account merging gives every Impact App user at BOTH related Accounts access to all the assessments from both of the merged Accounts. This has the potential to reveal sensitive company data to an unauthorized party. You should NOT merge 2 accounts unless you’re very confident that both are valid accounts and that ALL the related users should have access to the combined list of Assessment records.
Another risk: Employees at different levels of the company create BIA logins which, when merged, reveals info about who at the company is interested or investigating certification in unintended or unapproved ways. Think Nike, imagine a mid-level employee (who’s responsibilities don’t include sustainability or corporate governance) is interested in the BIA and they create a login to check it out, using their work email. Then a C-suite employee creates a login later to see if Certification is something they should pursue for Nike. Then we merge the accounts and the C-suite person sees that some random mid-level employee is exploring B Certification for Nike without authorization.
NOTE: The best person to merge an account is the person closest to the account who knows who the people in it are - aka the “owner” (that might be the Cert owner or the BD owner depending on where the Account is in its lifecycle). If you’re not familiar with the Account, you should coordinate with the “owner”.
Duplicate Rules!
Ok, now that we have all the context. How do we actually merge? We have 3 matching rules in place for accounts.
- Account Name - "Fuzzy" - Are the Account name in salesforce the same? Do they match? How similar are they. This rule will find all account names that are similar
- Billing State - Exact - Billing state must be the same. This rule is not case sensitive
- Billing Country - Exact - Billing Country must be the same. This rule is not case sensitive
STEP 1
Go to the Related tab on Accounts and see if there is a Duplicate notice!
STEP 2
Click View Duplicates and the Account choice screen will populate with the potential duplicate. Keep in mind, you can only merge 2 accounts at a time.
Step 3
Choose what fields you'd like to pick and choose! The Impact App must be the "winner" for the record to merge. Please choose that to be the master!
Step 4
If it merges properly you'll see it in the Account History section under Related!
