If you are expecting a lot of web form entries, duplicates can be a real headache. GraceBlocks provides embedded logic to make managing form entries easier by allowing you to detect and manage duplicate entries.

Duplicate logic is managed per web form. Builders can define the logic they need on each individual web form, according to how that form will be used. They can define this logic through web form settings.

• To access these settings, you first need to toggle on the master switch for duplicates in the web forms settings area, Update vs. create new record when duplicates are identified.

When you toggle on that setting, the following settings become available:

• Duplicate criteria
• Block updates of these fields when duplicate
• Replace vs. append values for multi-select fields

Duplicate criteria

You can use the Duplicate criteria setting to identify what you consider to be a "duplicate" record. Perhaps a duplicated email address or duplicated phone number + first name is the criteria that distinguishes a duplicate record. You can define multiple criteria field sets. Each set will be joined by an "or" clause. All of the fields in a set need to match for a duplicate to be identified.

Follow these steps to add criteria to this setting field:

Step	Action	Visual
1	Click the + icon. The field selector list appears.
2	Select one or more fields from the list to define a criteria set. For example, let's say that a duplicate is indicated when both first name and phone number match. This set of criteria allows for situations where users in the same household are sharing the same phone. Select both the First name and Phone number fields.
3	To save the selection, click anywhere outside of the Duplicate Criteria field. The criteria you defined appears in the Duplicate Criteria field.
4	Repeat steps 1 - 3 until you have entered all possible criteria sets that might identify duplicates.

Block updates of these fields when duplicate

You can use the Block updates of these fields when duplicate setting to control how the data from incoming duplicate records is managed; you can define which fields will be updated and which fields from the incoming duplicate record will be ignored. Sometimes when a new entry comes in that is identified as a duplicate, you want to update an existing record with information from the incoming record. But you need to be careful that the update does not completely change the nature of the original entry. In fact, sometimes you want to completely ignore duplicate records altogether.

If you want to entirely block duplicate entries from being updated, you would select every field that exists on the form in this tab. Or, if you want to allow fields entered via the form to completely update an existing record, you would not select any fields here. You can also use this setting to let someone update most fields, but not update the identifying information (like name and email) for a record.

Follow these steps to add criteria to the Block updates of these fields when duplicate setting:

Step	Action	Visual
1	Select one or more fields to block from being updated when duplicates are found. For example, let's say you don't want the name of the person, organization, or phone number to change. But you will allow updates to information about a request. You would select name, organization and phone number fields from the list. The selected fields appear in gray bubbles at the top of the listing.
2	Click anywhere outside of the field to save the selection. A bubble for each selected field appears.

🔔 If you want to see the data that might not get stored because it's blocked from being updated, make sure you activate the Form submission email notice on the web forms modal page. This setting instructs GraceBlocks to send you an email that includes the data (but not physical attachments) provided in a form submission that was excluded from the update of the record in GraceBlocks as a result of the Duplicate Criteria setting.

Replace vs. append values for multi-select fields:

If the tab you are working with has no multi-select scenarios, there will be no options to select for this setting. However, if a tab has a field that supports any of the following: multiple select fields, relational fields with multi-select enabled, or attachment fields with multiple attachments enabled, all fields of hose types appear as options you can select for the Replace vs. append values for multi-select fields setting.

If you do nothing, the GraceBlocks default behavior for an update is for new selections to append, NOT replace, the existing stored values and/or attachments in the multi-select scenario fields.

In most cases, the default behavior should be the desired behavior, because it ensures that you do not lose the prior information when the new submission comes in.

For this setting, only select fields for which you wish to override this default behavior. If you have a scenario where you'd like prior values to be replaced with the new values, use this setting to select the fields where you want to replace existing values with new values.

Follow these steps to add criteria to this setting field:

Step	Action	Visual
1	Select one or more fields to have their data replaced (not appended to existing data) in the case where a duplicate is identified for a field that is configured to be updated. For example, let's say you only want to know someone's current favorite ice cream flavors; you do not want to know what they used to like. Then you would choose to replace the Favorite ice cream flavors field when duplicates are found by selecting Favorite ice cream flavors for the Replace vs append values for multi-select fields setting. The selected fields appear in gray bubbles at the top of the listing.
2	Click anywhere outside of the field to save the selection. The defined criteria appears in the field.