Nimble CRM Deduplication Guide

Supported Objects

Dedupely supports deduplication for the following Nimble CRM object:

• Contacts

Nimble CRM keeps everything in one object, so there is one thing to deduplicate and no cross-object case to think about.

Permissions Required

Connecting Nimble CRM uses OAuth, so there is no API key to generate or paste. You authorize Dedupely from your Nimble CRM account, and the connection carries your own permissions: you need the rights to edit and delete the records you intend to deduplicate.

Common Nimble CRM Duplicate Issues

Nimble CRM builds its records from the places your team already works, and that is where the duplicates come from:

• The same contact arrives from two sources. One saved from email, another from a social profile, and a third from an import: three records for one contact, each holding part of the history.
• Name variations read as different contacts. "Acme Inc" and "Acme Inc." are two records, and so are Bob and Robert at the same address.
• Imports without a stable identifier. A spreadsheet that does not carry the record ids creates a fresh copy of everything it touches.
• No duplicate detection to speak of. Nimble CRM does not flag duplicates as they are created, so nothing tells you the second record exists.

Nimble CRM Native Merge Functionality

That is the reason to use Dedupely here rather than a convenience on top of something Nimble CRM already does. Dedupely resolves a duplicate by consolidating the field values onto the record you keep, according to your Merge Rules, then carrying across what the API allows, and only then removing the duplicate.

What moves to the record you keep:

• Field values, added rather than overwritten, so the duplicate's extra emails, phone numbers and addresses join the ones already there.
• Tags, as the union of both records.
• Notes, copied across.

Merge History keeps the original field values of both records, exportable as CSV, so the merge itself can be audited or the values restored by hand.

Recommended Nimble CRM Deduplication Process

1. Clean the existing backlog first: merge what is already there before you automate anything, so your rules are proven against real records rather than against the handful that arrive tomorrow.
2. Work one source at a time: a batch of duplicates from an import behaves differently from the ones email capture created, and a search built for one will be wrong for the other.
3. Trace where the duplicates come from: email capture, social profiles, imports. Each source produces a different shape of duplicate and wants its own match logic.
4. Build one Duplicate Search per scenario: a strict search on Exact Email for the obvious matches, and a looser one on Similar Name for the cases that need a person to look.
5. Check a merge before you automate it: merge a small batch and confirm in Merge History that the values you expected survived.
6. Automate the strict searches: Auto Merge on the searches you trust, Auto Match on the looser ones so you are notified to review rather than merged automatically.

FAQs about Nimble CRM deduplication

• Can Nimble CRM merge duplicates itself? No. There is no merge in the API and none in the interface. Dedupely consolidates the values onto the record you keep and then removes the duplicate.
• What happens to the record that is removed? It is deleted from Nimble CRM. Its field values, tags and notes are carried onto the surviving record first, and Merge History keeps the originals of both, exportable as CSV.
• Does anything get lost in a Nimble CRM merge? Tasks, deals, events and message history have no reassign endpoint in the Nimble CRM API, so they cannot be moved to the surviving record and are removed with the duplicate. Field values, tags and notes all carry across.
• Does Dedupely deduplicate anything else in Nimble CRM? No. Contacts are the object Dedupely syncs and merges.
• Can I control which values survive? Yes. Merge Rules decide field by field, and you can pick the Primary by criteria such as the oldest, the newest or the most complete record.
• Can I match on fields other than name and email? Yes. Any field Nimble CRM syncs can be matched on, with Exact, Similar, Fuzzy, Similar Words or Domain Root.
• How quickly does Dedupely see a new record? Nimble CRM has no webhooks, so Dedupely polls rather than being pushed to. New records appear on the next sync rather than instantly.
• Is anything merged automatically when I connect? No. Connecting and syncing never merges, edits or deletes a record. A merge happens when you click Merge, or when you turn on Auto Merge for a search yourself.

Mentioned in this article: Duplicate Searches, Merge Rules, Merge History, Finding Duplicates, and Auto Match.