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CDK Name File Monster

PostPosted: Fri May 22, 2020 7:15 pm
by drapp
I don't believe we are alone here, CDK system with an out of control customer name file. Looking at installing a new CDK system in a couple months. How many of you have addressed the duplicate name issue? How did you best address it?

Re: CDK Name File Monster

PostPosted: Fri May 22, 2020 7:35 pm
by FixedManager
We collapse the inactive name files into the most active one, sort of an account supersession.

Re: CDK Name File Monster

PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2021 1:13 pm
by imacdude
I have spent a considerable amount of time on our name file.

As an enterprise that has an external data warehouse, it's trickier, as when Name Consolidation is run, and History is rewritten, some things in our data warehouse do not update completely.

I highly recommend CDK's Datafresh application. For a first run on Name Consolidation, it was a HUGE help.

I have a rather large process document on it. The things to note, going into Name Consolidation are, NCT will not merge a PARTS customer, nor an AR Customer.

My first step was to isolate all of the INACTIVE and DUPLICATE parts customers (not for the timid), create a dummy parts sale type, use OCST - Assign Sale Type to all of those customer records, and then CDK has to NULL the sale type, price codes, tax ID, Parts customer flag, and parts customer type. Once those are cleaned, then NCT can merge them with their duplicates.

Once Datafresh has run, it will apply a unique code to each customer, so that when you run NCT, you can tell it to use the DATAFRESH ID's to do the matching. The first time I did this, it reduced a 1.2Million name name file down to less than 700,000. That was a HUGE help!

It is neither a simple task, nor a quick one, but NCT is one of the best, as it will go back into parts and service history and apply the NEW customer number to historic references.