Home Forums SQL Server 2017 SQL Server 2017 - Development Checking for duplicate clients before INSERT RE: Checking for duplicate clients before INSERT

  • February 5, 2018 at 12:58 pm

    #1978618

    PhilipC - Monday, February 5, 2018 1:41 AM

    I'm involved in developing a client based application, and I'm working through how to do a duplicate check prior to the user saving a new client record.

    What I was thinking was something along the lines of:

    * Check for Exact match on FirstName, LastName, DOB
    * Check for Exact match on FirstName, LastName and DOB within the same month

    How do you all handle duplicate checks?

    I doubt that these checks would be valid for checking duplicates. In a short time, you would get duplicates that actually are different persons. 

    The only real solution we ever came up with, and implemented, was to use an auto-generated number as the key for the client, and testing a variety of the fields as for duplicates, and sending the user a message stating  a duplicate POSSIBLY exists. The application displayed the matches and the user would then need to decide if it was an actual duplicate.

    Michael L John
    If you assassinate a DBA, would you pull a trigger?
    To properly post on a forum:
    http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/61537/