Avoiding Duplicates from Forms

When using your Lawmatics custom forms there are some steps you can take to ensure you do not end up with any duplicate matters created in your CRM.

First and foremost, it is important to understand the difference between matters and contacts in Lawmatics 

You will also want to make sure you know when to create a custom form as matter type vs. contact type.

Lawmatics checks for duplicate contacts by default, it does this based on the email address field. If you try to create a new contact, via form or manually in the CRM, with an email address that already exists on a contact in your account the system will not create a duplicate contact. It will simply update the existing contact with any changes that were entered.

You do not need to enable any settings for this anti-duplicate contact check to take effect, it will simply happen by default. Matters on the other hand, have a slightly different approach to duplicate checks.

The following information will help you prevent duplicates from occurring, however if at any point you do wind up with a duplicate, note that you can easily merge duplicates.

Since it is probable that one person could approach your firm with more than one matter, we do not prevent duplicate matters from being created for a particular contact. For that reason, it is important to make sure you are sending your forms appropriately to make sure you do not end up with duplicate matters when there should not be more than one matter for an individual.

Any time you are sending a form via automation or from a matter's profile, you will not have to worry about duplicate matters. When a form is shared through either of these methods, the system knows that the form is connected to that particular matter, and any information that is filled out in the form will simply update the existing matter.

The only time you may end up with a duplicate matter by mistake is from a form that is embedded on your website or from sharing a generic form link. In both of these scenarios, the form is not directly connected to an individual matter, so someone filling it out will create a new matter.

If your firm commonly works with multiple matters for an individual, then you may want new form submissions to create new matters. It is possible that the same person may be filling out your web form for a new matter, so the form should create a new matter since it is not actually a duplicate, rather it is a separate matter.

In Lawmatics we have given you the option to choose if new form submissions should create a new matter, as described in the paragraph above, or if those submissions should link up to an existing matter, if one exists.

Most commonly, firms opt to enable duplicate checks for these form submissions, so that they will not end up with multiple matters for an individual. 

To enable this setting, go to your settings page (gear icon near the top right) and then select Firm Settings from the left sidebar. Enable the setting labelled Form Submissions Match by Email, shown below.

With this setting enabled, then if a new form is submitted with an email address that already exists on a matter in Lawmatics, the form will simply save to that existing matter rather than creating a new one.

With this setting disabled, each of those form submissions would create a new matter.

Whether you would like to enable this option or not is completely up to your firm, depending on the nature of your practice. Note that this setting is set on a firm level. Whatever option you decide on will apply to all of your firm's custom forms.

It is also important to note that with this setting enabled, it is essential that you have the Email (Primary) field in use on your firms to make sure that the duplicate check can take place, since the check happens on the email field. We also suggest making that field required on the form, so that you are sure to get the person's email address and avoid duplicates.

If the email address field is not on your form, then whether or not you have this setting enabled you could be susceptible to duplicates.

Don't forget that in case you do ever end up with duplicates, Lawmatics makes it very simple to merge duplicates.

FAQ's

If I do end up with a duplicate, can I merge the duplicate into the correct matter?

No, you can't merge two matters. You would need to manually move any pertinent information from the duplicated onto the matter that you want to keep, then delete the duplicate.

How do I create multiple matters for the same contact?

You can easily create a new matter for an existing contact by hovering your mouse on the orange plus sign shortcut menu in the top right, and select Add Matter. Then use the Associated Contact/Company dropdown at the bottom of the popup window to select an existing contact or company for the new matter. You can also go to that contact's profile, and select the Create Matter button at the bottom of the page.

If the same contact has multiple matters do I need to retype their contact information for each matter?

No, all of their contact information will automatically populate in the new matter. The matter fields, however, will be a clean slate in the new matter.