When someone puts in a request via email, a web form, or walks-in to one of your locations they may provide different information for themselves based on the information requested and their place within the application process. Sometimes they will submit a web form with their personal email, or perhaps they walk-in to a location and haven't been provided with their Student ID yet. Parents, too, can provide different contact information or may already have a Peoplesoft record because they are students or staff themselves.
- For those reasons it is highly recommended to first try to Create or Update a Contact Record in Salesforce from Peoplesoft by putting the Student or Staff ID and/or UMN email address in using the Find Contacts functionality within the Service Portal. Anyone who provides and EMPLID or UMN Email address should be found using that method instead.
- This article is intended for finding parents, guardians, agents, or other potential contacts who reach out to you but do not have a record in Peoplesoft. Prior to Creating a Contact you should use this method to search and see if the Contact record already exists.
Searching for Existing or Duplicate records
- If the contact is able to provide an EMPLID or UMN Email address follow the directions to Create or Update a Contact Record in Salesforce from Peoplesoft.
- If the contact provides other information use the Global Search bar at the top of the screen where you're able to search all of the records available to you within CRM.
- Within this search bar you can search for records that have the same contact associated:
Good terms to use:- first name
- known variations or common errors on spelling of the first name (Kirsten v. Kristen or Christopher v. Chris)
- known variations or common errors on spelling of the last name (Larson v. Larsen)
- if the last name is hyphenated the different names individually or in different formats
- email address
- other potential email addresses provided by the contact
- phone number or other contact information (if using phone number try different formats as well)
- If you do find another record use other contextual information to verify and/or correct the information.
- If you have the person on the phone you would be able to ask them the correct or preferred information to use and/or verify if the other contact information is indeed their own.
- If you are checking without immediate contact your internal business processes may dictate how or when to reach out to a person to verify their information in order to update, or preferences in retaining information such as preferred nickname or long version of first name.