Duplicates

  • Thread starter Thread starter JN
  • Start date Start date
J

JN

Hi. Is there a way for Access alerting you by way of pop up or something,
when you are entering data twice, i.e. new customer, to let you know that,
that name has already been entered before just in case you are duplicating a
record? If you have 4 thousand records, it would help the user entering the
data in 'form' to know before hand. So that they can check before
continuing that the customer may have the same name but different address,
in which case they can continue. I've done a query to search for duplicates
and found way too many.
Ta very much.
J
 
How do you define "duplicate"?

Are the following duplicates:
J. Smith
John Smith
John J. Smith
J. J. Smith

Access does believe these are duplicates, since the characters don't match.

So how do you intend to tell Access how to tell that these four are the same
person?
 
I mean duplicate customer.
example
Surname - Smith
Address - 1 Avenue Road
Town - Brighton
Postcode - xx2 2xx

To ensure that that customer isn't already in the database do you have to
check the whole database before you add a record?
ta
 
Not sure what you mean by "check the whole database"? I can't see your data
structure, so I don't have a sense of how you've organized the data, nor if
you've used any indexing.

If you want Access to check for duplicates, the spelling of all fields would
have to be an EXACT match. Unless, of course, you are willing to specify in
code to Access how to determine "close match". In the example you offer,
Access would not, without more "training", be able to spot Smith @ 1 Avenue
Rd as a duplicate.

Is there a chance you could USB (use someone's brain)? For example, if your
system could look up name/address information, given a minimum of data (say,
the first three letters of the surname), would that allow your users to
visually determine that a customer already existed (and select that
customer)?

As an aside, when your customer Smith moves to 2 Avenue Road, or across
town, or across the country, how would Access or you or your users know it
was the same/duplicate customer?

There's a chance your goal of eliminating duplicates is too costly to
achieve. Perhaps you will settle on reducing the percentage of
duplications...

Good Luck!

Jeff Boyce
<Access MVP>
 
Thanks Jeff for your help. Just when you think you know something, you're
faced with so much of what you don't know!! I guess I was running before I'm
even walking. Lots more to learn.
J
 
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