How Does Access Deal with Duplicates and New Info

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I am doing some work for a non-profit (marketing work). They have NO central
database and relying on a tool called Survey Monkey which integrates into
their website and allows them to have members fill out information when they
want to sign up for specific roles (helpline, advocacy, etc.) The problem is
that they now have 15 surveys and data duplicated everywhere. Survey Monkey
does allow for CSV and Excel exports.

My idea is to bring the data together in Access and have one profile per
person with fields indicating their interest (helpline, etc.)

So - the big question I have is -- the non-profit wants to continue using
Survey Monkey. Is there a way for us to import new surveys and have Access
look for an update existing records (as long as we have one piece of data
consistent (i.e., e-mail.) I realize this might require an Access expert and
BTW: if there any of you out there that do this kind of work, I'd be
interested in the cost. We're a grassroots non-profit and can't do anything
too fancy.

Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Barbara,

Access has no problems dealing with this sort of thing: it's real life
that doesn't measure up.

It's quite common to have two people with exactly the same name; and
sometimes you'll get two of them living at the same address with the
same phone number. Not everyone has their own email address, some people
have more than one, and some people change their email addresses
frequently.

But if you have one or more fields that you trust to indicate which
record in one data source goes with which record in another, and you
know which data source supersedes the other, and the data is clean,
Access can handle it.

(Clean data: you and I can easily tell that
Mr Joe Blow
314 Chestnut Road
is probably the same person as
Mr Joseph P Blow, MA
314, Chestnut Rd.
but computer programs can't.)

If the email addresses are consistent enough for your needs and you can
live with one volunteer = one email address then it's fairly simple.
Setting a "unique" index on the email field will prevent duplicate
records from being created.
 
This was INCREDIBLY helpful. I do realize real life might throw us some
curves but my thinking is that if the e-mails are accurate about 95% of the
time we are still way ahead of where we are today. THANK YOU SO MUCH for a
really straightforward and easy to understand answer.
 
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