What can cause dupes?
The following are the primary causes of duplicates:
• Disconnecting from SalesEZ application. If Sales is forwarding a record and gets disconnected from SalesEZ, it’s possible to create a duplicate. The time frame for this scenario is miniscule (something like 1/100 of a second), so it is an unlikely cause of dupes. If a duplicate does get created this way, however, we see one record per disconnect. A “good” dupe is then created (i.e., the exact same record is already in the server data).
• Power outages, power surges, etc. Same as #1 above.
• Two salespoints, each with the same salespoint ID, can cause duplicates. Lock keys make sharing a salespoint ID difficult, but it’s not impossible. This duplicate scenario would happen when both salespoints are live. A likely cause is that one computer has come out of storage and it has the same name as an active salespoint. This situation creates a “bad” dupe (the exact same record is not already on the server).
• Inconsistent max keys can cause “bad” dupes.
• Bugs in the software can cause “bad” dupes.
• Manually copying your live data to training can cause dupes in the training data. Copying live data to training data (or vice versa) are done via the SysManager > Utilities > Data Maintenance dialog; this reduces the chances for duplicate creation.
In some cases it is possible that two salespoints are editing the same saved sale or same reservation at the same time. There have been occasions where this may cause duplicates or forwarding errors. Duplicates and forwarding errors can also be caused when an off-site laptop (used for selling products at a remote location – like a ski show) is returned to the main location and hooked up to the network. Sometimes, because records were created in an off-line state, it is possible in certain circumstances to create duplicate entries.