The Process Duplicates window allows you to review the records FlexMail has identified as duplicates and to manually identify which records you want FlexMail to keep and which records you want FlexMail to purge. In some cases you don't want to simply delete one duplicate or another. FlexMail also allows you to take some of the data from one of the records and put it in the other.
When this window is first displayed, it shows the first duplicates set of the series of duplicates sets that FlexMail has amassed. Use the arrow buttons to move through the different duplicates sets. Note that FlexMail has marked all first records of each duplicate group for keeping. You are essentially being prompted to override or accept this setting.
To manually select records through the Process Duplicates window:
Examine the initially-displayed group of records and decide which record or records you want to keep and which record or records you want to mark for purging. To help you make this decision, review especially the File ID and Record columns; they tell you the source file and sequence number of each record, respectively.
Depending on the task, do one of the following:
For Find Duplicates tasks and Merge tasks check the Keep column for every record you want to mark for survival, and clear every check box you want to mark for purging. At this time you can also make any changes you want to the records that you want to keep or copy field contents from one record to another.
For Purge tasks check the Purge column for every record you want to purge from the master file, and clear the check box for every record you want to keep in the master. When you are manually processing a Purge task, you can only check and uncheck records in the master file. Since you are only purging records, you cannot make changes to the records.
Note: Remember that this is only a marking stage; what FlexMail does with the records (for example, whether or not it actually deletes the records marked for purging) is determined by the output options you have selected.
When you are satisfied with your selections for that group, click the Next Record on the toolbar.
FlexMail saves the selections you have made for the current duplicates set and displays the next available set of duplicate records.
Repeat steps 1 through 3 for each available set of duplicate records until you have examined them all. The currently displayed duplicates set and the total number of available duplicates sets is displayed on the toolbar.
After you have worked your way through all of the duplicates sets and you are satisfied with your selections, click Process All.
Note: At this stage it is no longer possible to cancel the merge or purge task, because some changes to the files already have been made and cannot be undone.
Tips:
You can resize the Process Duplicates window to show more or all records from a duplicate group and/or more columns of each record.
You can make any column wider or more narrow, as necessary to better view its contents.
You can print the duplicates that are currently displayed in the window by selecting Print on the toolbar.