Does Outlook 2010 have a remove duplicates feature? If not, why no

[jimmy fallon]

Syncing my HTC HD2 and every other phone I have ever had, has had a habit of
creating duplicates in Outlook. It is starting to drive me insane. Shouldn't
this be a simple feature in ANY contact management program? Can somone point
it out to me because I just don't like using 3rd party software for this
stuff.

Thanks...

jf

 

[Karl Timmermans]

#1 - If "duplicates" are created via a "sync" process then it's the syncing
software that is creating the "duplicates" - or to be more specific,
whatever rules are being followed are resulting in 2 or more contact items
being found to be "non duplicates" which you consider should be

#2 - As an informational question, what would you consider a valid set of
"duplication rules" that would be satisfactory on a <universal> basis for a
very wide population?
- which field(s) should constitute a <duplicate>?
- what creation date should be considered primary (oldest or latest?)
- what <last modification datetime> should be considered
primary (oldest or latest?)
- do all fields that contain different values get "replaced"?
- do empty fields automatically get populated with any the
corresponding
"non empty" fields?

*** please remember that any contact created by a "sync" process will
<by definition> ALWAYS have the most recent Creation and Last
Modification datestimes immediately after a "sync" so it is quite possible
that the original contact item in Outlook could contain more current info
then the item created via the "sync" process.

The "duplicate rules" questions is asked with real interest in terms of
your
opinion - not intended in any other way.

Karl
--
____________________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - QuickPort/DataPort/Exporter/Toolkit/Duplicate Contact Mgr
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2010"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[jimmy fallon]

Pretty complicated answer for a pretty simple question, no offense.

Outlook seems to be perfectly good at knowing when I am about to add a
duplicate. If I create a contact with the same name, it always asks if I
would like to merge or create a new contact.

And the sync software, Windows Mobile Device Center, doesn't have and never
has had a feature to detect and remove duplicates that I know of.

Of course if you are importing contacts from a CSV list from another source
there has ALWAYS been an option to not create duplicates.

So to answer: the FIRST AND LAST NAME should be the criteria for a
duplicate, and a simple MERGE feature should be the answer, same as it is in
the import process, and a SIMPLE window asking which one is the more recent
contact that you would like to merge into.

What I have is LOTS of EXACT duplicates, which should be pretty easy when
you think about it. I mean there are all kinds of third party duplicate
software out there, Is it really too much to ask that Outlook address this?
If there is some sort of limitation then say so, but obviously it's not that
hard to do if it already exists in the import process.

To reiterate, I do not WANT to use a third party software for this. I can
only think that the lack of a BACKUP feature in Outlook AND the lack of a
DUPLICATE remover must be some sort of really hard thing for the developers
to grasp for some reason. If there is a simple answer as to why these
features are not there, I would love to hear it.

jf

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

Syncing my HTC HD2 and every other phone I have ever had, has had a habit of
creating duplicates in Outlook. It is starting to drive me insane. Shouldn't
this be a simple feature in ANY contact management program? Can somone point
it out to me because I just don't like using 3rd party software for this
stuff.

No duplicate removal built in. See this:
http://www.slipstick.com/addins/mail_duplicates.asp

 

[jimmy fallon]

Thanks Brian... I guess that is the simple answer, sorry man just SO
frustrating, sometimes the simpliest most obvious things seem overlooked.
jf

 

[Karl Timmermans]

Point of the question was to ask your view of what a "duplicate" is and how
it should be handled - yours was a perfectly valid description save for one
thing - not sufficient for a lot of people. At the end of the day -
Outlook would get criticized regardless of what "simplistic" approach is
implemented. Difference of how it's done (ignoring the 3 fields used to
determine a dupe) is that when importing - the "new" item is "known" - it's
the one that comes from the input source. What you're describing is Outlook
determining which contact item to select from a single source which is not
the same animal.

Would also suspect that having to deal with a window on a contact by
contact basis as to which is more recent when a lot of contacts are
involved would be a horrendous task. As mentioned, if done via Outlook,
there are only two fields that could be used to determine that which are
the CreationDate and LastModificationTime fields. These would "always" have
the latest values for items created by the sync software so in the scenario
you describe, the contact items from the mobile device would always be the
most current.

Concept of "sync" is that the "same" contact items get updated (not new
ones created) so there is something that has caused those items to be
considered as "new contacts". It's the sync software that's creating the
new contact items - Outlook is not remotely involved at this stage.

For the record, question wasn't related to whether or not you wanted to use
3rd party software or even suggesting that as the solution. Was just
curious as to what you considered to be valid "duplication rules" to
compare to other answers received over time. As expected, many other people
wouldn't consider the approach you outlined as viable for their needs. Real
question is "why is your sync software" creating the duplicates in the
first place which might be a question to pose to whoever wrote the
software. At a minimum, you should get a better understanding of how
"their" process works since that's where the problem seems to be
originating from if it's an on-going issue. If everyone ended up with a
never-ending set of duplicate contacts everytime they "sync'd" - logic
indicates that that would cause a massive uproar from the "community at
large". From the description, there is no "sync" going on in these cases
but rather new contact items simply being added to the target Outlook
folder (which sounds very much like a setting in your sync software). The
other curiousity based on your description, sounds like this only creates
duplicates on the Outlook side of the equation but not on the mobile side
of things.

In any case, thank you for your response.

Karl
--
____________________________________________________________
Karl Timmermans - The Claxton Group
ContactGenie - QuickPort/DataPort/Exporter/Toolkit/Duplicate Contact Mgr
"Contact import/export/data management tools for Outlook '2000/2010"
http://www.contactgenie.com

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP-Outlook]]

Thanks Brian... I guess that is the simple answer, sorry man just SO
frustrating, sometimes the simpliest most obvious things seem overlooked.

It's not overlooked. It's just hard to determine what "duplicate" means. To
some it means every single field must be replicated and that would fit my
definition as well, but to others, it means nothing more than a match in, say,
the File As value.