Latest / Sidekick's What Just Shipped / HubSpot Bulk Duplicate Rejects: clear false matches at once | Shipped Nov 2026
Transcript
- Dana (AI host): Your HubSpot duplicate list can be full of pairs that turn out not to be duplicates at all. Rob (AI host): Now a Data Hub beta lets you clear a whole filtered group of those pairs in one go. Dana (AI host): The filter you set first decides what gets cleared. Narrator (AI voice): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped, presented by Sidekick Strategies. Narrator (AI voice): Your hosts, Rob and Dana, are AI. Narrator (AI voice): The voices are synthetic, the research is real, and humans check every claim before it reaches you. Dana (AI host): Welcome in. I'm Dana, Rob's here too, and we're both AI hosts. Dana (AI host): Our sources are HubSpot's in-app product updates and its help articles on duplicate records. Rob (AI host): Sure, and today I'm playing a hypothetical marketing ops manager at a made-up company whose contact database grew through years of imports. Dana (AI host): Why it matters: you can clear a whole band of false matches in one pass, instead of picking pairs off the table. Rob (AI host): Back up. What's suggesting these pairs in the first place? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's duplicate model compares a set list of properties. Dana (AI host): For contacts, that's first name, last name, email address, IP country, phone number, zip code, and company name. Rob (AI host): And how often does it look? Dana (AI host): It calculates results as new contacts and companies are created, and it also checks once a day if no new records come in. Rob (AI host): What's the default cutoff for a suggestion? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's in-app note says that by default, it surfaces contacts with a similarity score of thirty percent or more. Rob (AI host): That's a low bar. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's help article explains why. Dana (AI host): Contact data varies more than company data, so contacts get wider similarity options, to surface pairs that aren't obvious at first glance. Rob (AI host): In my made-up company, plenty of those low scores would be two different people who share a last name. Dana (AI host): That's the situation HubSpot describes. Dana (AI host): As you work through suggestions, you might realize that pairs below a certain score aren't duplicates at all. Rob (AI host): So what actually changed? Dana (AI host): In the duplicate management tool, you can now reject more than fifty suggested pairs at a time. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's in-app product updates list it as a public beta for Data Hub Professional and Enterprise. Rob (AI host): Walk me through it. Dana (AI host): Open the duplicate management table, and apply filters to target one subset of suggestions. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's own example is a similarity score under half. Rob (AI host): Which filters can I use? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's help article lists owner, create date, similarity, last activity date, and discovered date, which is when the possible duplicate was found. Dana (AI host): Lifecycle stage is on the list too. Rob (AI host): And once the filter's set? Dana (AI host): Choose select all at the top left of the table. Dana (AI host): That selects every suggested pair in view, and then a second option appears to select all pairs. Dana (AI host): Choose that, and you can reject everything you selected. Rob (AI host): Where does this table live? Dana (AI host): Go to CRM, then Contacts or Companies. Dana (AI host): In the upper right, open the more options menu and select Manage duplicates, then pick the rule you want to review. Rob (AI host): Can I see more than names while I review? Dana (AI host): Yes. Dana (AI host): Click Edit columns, tick the properties you want to compare, and they show up as columns in the table. Dana (AI host): You can drag them into whatever order helps. Rob (AI host): Who's allowed to do it? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's help article asks for Data quality tools access, plus Edit permissions set to all contacts or all companies, or Super Admin permissions. Rob (AI host): And plans? Not everyone pays for Data Hub. Dana (AI host): Reviewing duplicates one pair at a time works on Professional or Enterprise plans across several hubs. Dana (AI host): Bulk actions need Data Hub Professional or Enterprise. Rob (AI host): Wasn't there already some way to reject a batch? Dana (AI host): There was, in a different shape. Dana (AI host): Refine suggestions lets you pick up to three extra properties, analyze, and then reject every pair whose values differ on those properties. Rob (AI host): So refine works by property, and the new option works by filter. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Hey, it's George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Full honesty, this is my AI voice clone, made with my permission. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Rejecting false duplicates clears the queue. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Knowing why your CRM keeps producing them is the bigger fix. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Our Data Hygiene Scorecard asks ten questions and grades your CRM data from A to F, across completeness, accuracy, consistency, governance, and automation. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): You walk away with a prioritized fix first list in about five minutes. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Find the Data Hygiene Scorecard under tools at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Rob (AI host): Okay, what happens after I click Reject? Dana (AI host): Rejected pairs leave the table and won't be suggested again. Dana (AI host): One exception from HubSpot's help: if a record from a rejected pair is later merged into another record, it could show up again. Rob (AI host): And if I reject too much? Dana (AI host): HubSpot's in-app note says you can open View history from the menu at the top right of the table, to review what was rejected or restore pairs. Rob (AI host): Is there a time limit on that? Dana (AI host): The help article says you can roll back a rejected pair for up to fourteen days. Dana (AI host): And if the records' property values change during that window, they won't appear in the undo list. Rob (AI host): That's a real catch. Dana (AI host): Merging is stricter still. HubSpot's help is plain that merged records can't be reverted. Rob (AI host): Can I merge everything in bulk the same way? Dana (AI host): Not with this beta. Dana (AI host): HubSpot says it's working on more safeguards before it extends this to merging every suggested duplicate on the table. Rob (AI host): Good. That's the scary one. Dana (AI host): If the default matching doesn't fit, Data Hub Professional or Enterprise can also build custom duplicate rules, up to two per object, comparing up to nine properties. Rob (AI host): What couldn't we pin down this time? Dana (AI host): A couple. Dana (AI host): HubSpot's in-app entry shows no release date, so we're dating this to its November update. Dana (AI host): And it doesn't say whether the help article's undo window works the same way for pairs rejected through select all. Rob (AI host): So reject a small slice first, and test the undo before you go big. Dana (AI host): Here's a plan for this week. Dana (AI host): First, confirm you're on Data Hub Professional or Enterprise, and that your user has data quality tools access. Rob (AI host): Next, read through a sample of pairs in your lowest similarity range, and count how many are real duplicates. Dana (AI host): Then filter to the range you trust as false matches, select all pairs, and reject. Rob (AI host): Finally, open View history straight away, and check what was rejected. Dana (AI host): So, the verdict from the marketing ops desk? Rob (AI host): Data quality verdict: a real time saver for clearing false matches, as long as you sample first and remember the undo window is short. Dana (AI host): Filter, sample, then reject. Rob (AI host): Sources for this one are in the show notes, and more HubSpot updates are at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Dana (AI host): Appreciate you joining us for this one. Rob (AI host): Fewer false alarms, cleaner records. Narrator (AI voice): Sidekick's What Just Shipped is presented by Sidekick Strategies, with AI hosts Rob and Dana and AI-generated music. Narrator (AI voice): We're independent, and not affiliated with HubSpot. Find our research at Sidekick Strategies dot com.