Duplicate Customers in HQ and SO

Posted by manicsquirrel on February 6, 2007, 5:23 pm

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One of new customers called me today with a bizarre problem. In store
operations, about 20% of the customer records are duplicates. It's
not the kind of duplicate where it loks like someone typed in the
information twice. It looks like an error in SO or HQ. The customer
records that are duplicated have the exact same account number as
well.

I can image an senario that caused it, but I'd like some feedback from
other users. This customer hs had RMS for about 6 months now. We
just acquired them last month and are straightening out a whole lot of
problems.

My thought is they had two registers locally, and then moved one to
another store and connected them using HQ. At that exact moment the
Store Ops would have had the same customer list. I'm wondering if
each store could have then built upon those customer lists and HQ
merged them together creating duplicates of the original customer
list?

Since that time, it looks as if one or the other entry has been used
for purchases so that each duplicate customer entry has different
transaction histories. Further more, the same account number is used
by different people as well. It is as if each store auto-generate
account number list is acting independently of one another.

Any suggestions?

Posted by Kevin Pham [MSFT] on February 6, 2007, 8:08 pm

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Could you ask him if he used a tool to import some customers to SO or HQ?

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

> One of new customers called me today with a bizarre problem. In store

> operations, about 20% of the customer records are duplicates. It's

> not the kind of duplicate where it loks like someone typed in the

> information twice. It looks like an error in SO or HQ. The customer

> records that are duplicated have the exact same account number as

> well.

> I can image an senario that caused it, but I'd like some feedback from

> other users. This customer hs had RMS for about 6 months now. We

> just acquired them last month and are straightening out a whole lot of

> problems.

> My thought is they had two registers locally, and then moved one to

> another store and connected them using HQ. At that exact moment the

> Store Ops would have had the same customer list. I'm wondering if

> each store could have then built upon those customer lists and HQ

> merged them together creating duplicates of the original customer

> list?

> Since that time, it looks as if one or the other entry has been used

> for purchases so that each duplicate customer entry has different

> transaction histories. Further more, the same account number is used

> by different people as well. It is as if each store auto-generate

> account number list is acting independently of one another.

> Any suggestions?

Posted by manicsquirrel on February 7, 2007, 1:12 pm

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The original partner is no longer in the picture. However, I did some
more investigating. The transaction histories are older than the
introduction of RMS at their stores. I asked the customer if their
first partner had used an import tool to bring in their old customer
histories and he confirmed that it was done. I'm now thinking that
the customers may have been imported at each register or the import
was attempted twice.

Either way, I will have to write an application to resolve this mess.
My biggest concern is wanting to make sure that it was in fact caused
by an import issue. They just noticed this problem two weeks ago, but
the entries had to have been in there all along. Now they're telling
me they have the same issue with some vendor records as well and that
it just started last week. I cannot see how, but I have to look into
that further as well.

In any case, because of the use of duplicate account numbers I know
this coudln't have happened using the StoreOps or HQ user interface.

wrote:

> Could you ask him if he used a tool to import some customers to SO or HQ?

> --

> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no

>

>

>

>

> > One of new customers called me today with a bizarre problem. In store

> > operations, about 20% of the customer records are duplicates. It's

> > not the kind of duplicate where it loks like someone typed in the

> > information twice. It looks like an error in SO or HQ. The customer

> > records that are duplicated have the exact same account number as

> > well.

>

> > I can image an senario that caused it, but I'd like some feedback from

> > other users. This customer hs had RMS for about 6 months now. We

> > just acquired them last month and are straightening out a whole lot of

> > problems.

>

> > My thought is they had two registers locally, and then moved one to

> > another store and connected them using HQ. At that exact moment the

> > Store Ops would have had the same customer list. I'm wondering if

> > each store could have then built upon those customer lists and HQ

> > merged them together creating duplicates of the original customer

> > list?

>

> > Since that time, it looks as if one or the other entry has been used

> > for purchases so that each duplicate customer entry has different

> > transaction histories. Further more, the same account number is used

> > by different people as well. It is as if each store auto-generate

> > account number list is acting independently of one another.

>

> > Any suggestions?- Hide quoted text -

>

> - Show quoted text -

Posted by Kevin Pham [MSFT] on February 7, 2007, 1:48 pm

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Please make sure to back up databases before doing anything. The easiest
way is to use a set of SQL scripts to delete and fix duplicate
customer/vendor records.

Good luck,

Kevin

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

> The original partner is no longer in the picture. However, I did some

> more investigating. The transaction histories are older than the

> introduction of RMS at their stores. I asked the customer if their

> first partner had used an import tool to bring in their old customer

> histories and he confirmed that it was done. I'm now thinking that

> the customers may have been imported at each register or the import

> was attempted twice.

> Either way, I will have to write an application to resolve this mess.

> My biggest concern is wanting to make sure that it was in fact caused

> by an import issue. They just noticed this problem two weeks ago, but

> the entries had to have been in there all along. Now they're telling

> me they have the same issue with some vendor records as well and that

> it just started last week. I cannot see how, but I have to look into

> that further as well.

> In any case, because of the use of duplicate account numbers I know

> this coudln't have happened using the StoreOps or HQ user interface.

> wrote:

>> Could you ask him if he used a tool to import some customers to SO or HQ?

>> --

>> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no

>> > One of new customers called me today with a bizarre problem. In store

>> > operations, about 20% of the customer records are duplicates. It's

>> > not the kind of duplicate where it loks like someone typed in the

>> > information twice. It looks like an error in SO or HQ. The customer

>> > records that are duplicated have the exact same account number as

>> > well.

>> > I can image an senario that caused it, but I'd like some feedback from

>> > other users. This customer hs had RMS for about 6 months now. We

>> > just acquired them last month and are straightening out a whole lot of

>> > problems.

>> > My thought is they had two registers locally, and then moved one to

>> > another store and connected them using HQ. At that exact moment the

>> > Store Ops would have had the same customer list. I'm wondering if

>> > each store could have then built upon those customer lists and HQ

>> > merged them together creating duplicates of the original customer

>> > list?

>> > Since that time, it looks as if one or the other entry has been used

>> > for purchases so that each duplicate customer entry has different

>> > transaction histories. Further more, the same account number is used

>> > by different people as well. It is as if each store auto-generate

>> > account number list is acting independently of one another.

>> > Any suggestions?- Hide quoted text -

>> - Show quoted text -