Dynamics 365: Duplicate detection rules in MS CRM

Maintaining the unique information in database is very crucial. Before, creating a record, we generally check whether same record is exist or not in database, if not we are allowing user to insert the record. For this we are generally writing custom code.

MS CRM has a feature called Duplicate detection. We can configure this feature by creating duplicate detection rules.

Scenario: I have a custom entity called State. And, I would like to create a duplicate detection rule on this entity such that same state name cannot be inserted into the system.

For this requirement, I have to create a duplicate detection rule first. Below is the navigation path to duplicate detection rules

MS CRM - > Settings - > Data Management -> Duplicate Detection Rules -> New

Screen will be looks like below

Because of my duplicate detection on same entity, both Base Record Type and Matching Record Type pointing to same entity (in this case - State)

We can put condition whether Case sensitive should be consider while duplicate check by select or un-select “Case-sensitive” field. By default it is No. i.e it will not take Case-sensitive into consideration.

And, we can put condition whether duplicate detection rules should consider inactive records or not by selecting “Exclude inactive matching records” field. By default it is unselected. i.e it will consider inactive records.

And, when it comes to fields

I kept Name field criteria should be “Exact Match” and kept “Ignore Blank Values” as Selected. So it will looking for exact match with in Name fields. If it finds the field it will alert you with a screen which will contains all the matching records as shown in below screen