Import CSV and Update Existing Entities (where matches exist)

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1

Hey folks:
This seems like a simple use case so maybe this is possible and I just can’t figure it out (or find documentation or discussion). There are some cases where I’m importing a CSV into an existing database and – rather than creating a duplicate of an entity – I’d like for it to update the existing entity with the additional information that’s in the CSV.

Right now it seems like it just creates a new entity rather than finding and matching to one that already exists. And I end up manually having to find those and merge them together.

Is there something I’m missing? Thanks much!

2

Hi, Pamela!
It’s not possible indeed

But you can try checking deduplication template in our template gallery - in Advanced category

This template will help to configure process like this:

  1. You import into existing database
  2. Automation find duplicates
  3. Compares those duplicates
  4. Updates one of them with the missing information
  5. Deletes the one with less info
    If smth will be unclear, you can ping us via chat

btw, curious to know where the data is coming from - maybe it will make sense to have integration instead>

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3

I have looked at the deduplication template already. It looked like it was set up to where the info from the newly-created entity is pasted to the original entity, then the newly-created entity is deleted. It seems like that might create problems where the newly-created entity could overwrite some of the fields in the original entity, if, for example, certain fields in the newly-created entity were blank. Is that correct?

I would prefer some way to automatically identify and merge duplicates instead, if the update upon import function isn’t included.

Maybe an automation that would find duplicates and merge them, instead of copying one over the other and deleting? Or only copying over when the new entity has data in a field and the original entity doesn’t?

4

You can set it up to always overwrite with the new data, or only overwrite if the new data is not empty, or only overwrite if the old data is empty, or whatever combination you would like.