Purpose

CartonCloud manages duplicate addresses by merging them. Rather than having three records of the same address, you can merge all the addresses into one, therefore, only having one record for that address to avoid confusion and error. Addresses can be merged without user approval (for example, when parsing an order) or with user approval (automatically merge address function from the address page or upon adding a new address or manually merge the address from within the individual address record). 

If you wish for every address entered in CartonCloud to require user approval (and to check for duplicates), you can enable the; 'If enabled, any new Addresses that are added to CartonCloud will require approval' setting in the Organisation Settings. With this setting turned on, all your addresses will require manual approval and manual merging (if applicable) before entering CartonCloud. See Requiring newly created addresses to be approved for more information. 

Benefits of merging addresses

  • Data integrity and accuracy.
  • Reduce the risk of delivery to the incorrect address as each address will be formatted correctly.
  • Reduction in clutter (fewer addresses in the system).
  • It makes it easier to find the correct address you are looking for when adding a new order.
  • Reduces ambiguity surrounding which address is correct when you have multiple similar addresses.

The use case for merging addresses 

  • If your staff enter an address without realising it had already been entered (if you have multiple staff members adding addresses and potentially at the same time). 
  • If your customer adds an address, but the address is already in your account. 
  • If an address has been formatted incorrectly and the original (correctly formatted) address already exists in your account. 

Criteria utilised to determine if the address is a duplicate 

When an address is added, CartonCloud will assess if the address is a duplicate on the below criteria: 

  • Same Company Name
  • Same Contact Name
  • Same Street Address 
  • Same Postcode
  • The existing Address is active
  • The Address is not Draft 

If the criteria above are met upon adding a new address, CartonCloud will prompt you to confirm if the address is a duplicate and if you wish to merge the address with the existing address:

When an address is imported (via Parser), the conditions for deeming an address a duplicate are far stricter as no user approval is required. Using the below criteria, CartonCloud will search the database for existing address strings:

  • Find exact match
  • Find exact match except containing extra commas
  • Find exact match except containing extra commas and spaces

If no matching address string is found then the system will attempt to find duplicate addresses on the below criteria:

  • Same Street Address AND
  • Same Contact Name OR Same Company Name

How to automatically merge addresses 

Suppose upon import CartonCloud does not detect a duplicate address (or you do not merge the address upon adding it) and you have the address approval setting turned off. In that case, you can check if you have any duplicate addresses using the Automatically Merge Duplicates function. 

To check for duplicate addresses and merge the addresses:

  • Navigate to the Addresses page, More>Addresses. 
  • Click More>Automatically Merge Duplicates. 

  • You will see a list of addresses that CartonCloud deems as duplicates. You will see each address and can assess if you wish them to be merged. To merge the address, select the green Merge button, or the red Ignore button to ignore it. 
Soundex (a phonetic algorithm that indexes words by sound, meaning it can find matches despite possible minor differences in spelling) is utilised to help determine duplicates 

  • The addresses will then be merged. 

How to manually merge addresses

There are two ways you can manually merge an address; you can do so from within the individual address or from the Address List View page. 

Within the individual address:

  • Navigate to the Addresses page, More>Addresses.
  • Select the address you wish to merge.
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Merge with Existing Address box.
  • Enter the address you wish to merge the address with. 

  • Select Merge. 

From the Address List View page:

  • Navigate to the Addresses page, More>Addresses.
  • Click More>Manually Merge Addresses.

  • Select the duplicate you wish to merge the address with.

  • Click Merge.