Any way to avoid duplicates on App?

Hey Peter, thanks for the input. 

This is not available at the moment, and it's not something that we're looking at doing. But I see your point for wanting it. 

/Gustav - Podio

I'm sorry to hear that. It would personally help me a lot. Now, it's pretty much impossible to manage in podio a table with many rows :-/

I need a way to have a primary key too. Or at least a way to generate a unique ID number

 I also need a way to prevent duplicate clients

Duplicate detection, Primary key on export and import would be ideal.

Primary key please!!!

This would be very useful for my custom app. Please reconsider adding this.

Need to expose the hidden primary key in exports, and the set of primary keys for related items, for many reasons including URL access by primary key, potential migrating out to another product, etc. 

And I agree on the need to prevent duplicates - simply allow 1 or more fields to require Unique values.

And/or during item creation, allow a search-as-you-type popup to list matches and help avoid creating a new item.

We, the people who use Podio, expect to find a dynamic feature development along with a dynamic life/business organizing software.

From my point of view, and I am sure I am not the only one thinking it, it is not a "big deal" to implement a check-box saying "Unique".

It is also not dynamic at all to say "This is not available at the moment, and it's not something that we're looking at doing".

This is a feature that will make Podio a lot better and would win a lot of hearts, so please, at least look at doing it, cause it takes only about five minutes :))

A big fan...

I agree, would be really helpful!

Best wishes

Roger

+1

A simple "Make Unique?" would be really useful

along with a "Single Item?" restraint on App References (an invoice does NOT usually have more than one customer ! )

(followed by reference fields on the above App Reference link .. eg Customer Number (which is unique) would also display the Customer Name and Telephone Number etc as selected depending on the App referencing the Customer app)

I totally agree with Andrew.

I agree that it would be very useful, but I don't think it's very polite to say that the Podio team should do it now and that it's a quick change - they might be very busy with other things that are of higher priority and it might not be just a quick change. We have raised this request, and I'm sure that if enough people support the request, the Podio team will look into it as soon as they have the time to. Until then, just tell all users to search for a lead/company/contact before adding a new item. That, if anything, is a quick change.

+1 for the primary key settings and avoiding duplicates!

Well, Emelie what you are suggesting it is not at all a recommended solution because the whole workflow would be prone to human error, which, if I am not mistaking, is one of the key reasons from which you decide to implement a standardized workflows. Some things, as the primary key are basic features for any database in whichever language it is written and you cannot go without it. 

On the other hand, politeness it is not a subject to be discussed here, because we are all mature people who try to support the Podio team to have a better product and we do not ask nothing in return, but a simple two way collaboration.

Thank you!

A primary key would be very useful.  I am stuck on several fronts without this.  There is a reason this is a standard database feature.

Hey guys,

Thanks for all your inputs. We are actually discussing internally to build an auto numbering function at some point, similar to what is being described here: https://help.podio.com/entries/23532362-Auto-incremental-numeric-fields

I can't make any promises, but our thought is that the auto number function could allow you to automatically track a unique number to each item, thereby make it easier to avoid duplicates.

I know it is not a 100 % solution to what you are asking for but I think it could still help a bit :)

//Sara - Podio

API Item ID on export would probably fix 80% of the issues listed above.

We've recently started using Podio and already see issues with different users creating duplicate items inadvertently (particularly with respect to contacts/leads).  This becomes an issue especially when inconsistently referencing from other apps.

I could see the following combination of features going a long way toward reducing duplicate entries:

1. Add a check box in the modify app section that requires the text entered to be unique
2. Add search as you type functionality when creating a new item so users can immediately see if the item has already been created.

Note that on #2 above, we tried using an app reference to itself, however this field would not accept a new entry when trying to create a new item.

In addition to impementing features that help avoid duplicate entries, adding functionality that would allow users to identify and fix these entries (either by deleting or merging them) would also be quite helpful.

Has there been any progress on this? It's been a year since this was first posted. Seems like a fairly essential feature for organisations using Podio for customer management, etc.

@Jonathan Sala - Still not feasible in Podio. However an Auto incremental numeric field had been introduced which helps. We will keep on pushing for this basic Future.

Agreed. A method for managing and/or preventing duplicate contacts would be really nice.

duplication prevention is needed.. +1

Another possible solution to this:
when adding new record, the field can show us the similar records as in the "search" function. we can see the similar ones visually and use the existing record or add the new one.

Sorry, but for us this is a bona fide deal-breaker. How can your development staff not have addressed this important feature in your database software? It is pretty much a standard feature in all databases, and always has been. It is one of the core building blocks of data validation and integrity. I can't even imagine the indirect costs to our organization by not having any way to prevent people from accidentally creating dupes.

You have implemented this in your Excel importing functionality, so why not reference that little chunk of code elsewhere and allow your users to lock down their databases appropriately?

I'm sincerely disappointed that Podio does not address this issue. There are many things to like about your platform, but your lack of common sense in choosing which mandatory development features to implement is severely undermining your mission and your potential.

Sorry to be raising my voice so loudly here, but your management and developers really don't seem to listen too well to your users and potential users, based on what I have been reading in these support forums. There are plenty of other issues I've run into in my testing that tell me that migrating from Salesforce to Podio would be a bad bad bad decision on my part. I have overlooked many of these other issues that have come up in my testing because I can think of clever work-arounds for each of them, but not for this one. By not addressing this properly, you are losing lots of potential customers like me (with 60 user licenses just lost).

Regards,
Michael

P.S. If you all come to your senses and can implement this necessary feature, I'd be happy to entertain migrating to Podio. But your time window is pretty slim.

@Adil tuncer I like your solution, hopefully someone from team Podio will be able to pick it up !

I think I figured out a way to avoid duplicate data (or at least help prevent it). If you want to create a primary key for the whole workspace, then create an app that holds only that one primary key. Let me give you an example using a workspace for tracking student visits.

You might want to create a dummy workspace and try this out (I haven't done that step.... just thinking this through).

A student has an ID with the pattern Snnnnnnnnn. For the sake of this example, let's say they are given their student ID by some external entity. The students have a first name, last name, and address.

First, create an app called "Student IDs". The template has only one field in it, a text field called "Student ID". <b>You should not directly add data to this app by choosing it in the task bar.</b>

Second, create an app called "Students". The very first field is a relationship field to the "Student IDs" app. You'll search for the student based on their ID. If they are found, then you know they have visited before. If not, you then create a new entry with the student ID they gave you. The second, third, and fourth fields are last name, first name, and address respectively. <b>Again, you should not directly add data to this app by choosing it in the task bar.</b>

Third, create an app called "Student Visits". It has a date field for date of the visit, a text field for the reason they visited, and a field for who they visited. It also has a relationship field to the "Students" app.

<b>The "Student Visits" app is the only application the front desk has to work with.</b>

Let's play out a scenario. A student comes in for a visit. The receptionist should create a new student visit record.

First, they enter in the date, reason, and the person visited.

They then get to the Student ID field, where they search for the student by their ID.

If the student ID matches a student already in the system, they choose it and complete the record.

If the student ID is not a match (maybe because it is their first visit), then the receptionist will create a new Student record.

The first step in creating a new student record is entering in the student ID, which is kept in the "Student IDs" app. Again, this is a reference field, so they look it up.

If the student ID does not exist in the "Student IDs" app, the the receptionist creates it and returns to complete the remaining field in the "Student" record.

Hope that helps you work around your problems. It's not a perfect system because there is no referential activity, but it should help eliminate a lot of duplication. The best part is, it saves the receptionist time. Once a "Student" record is created, they never have to create it again.

Anything? This is preventing me from moving forward with internal tracking on several fronts.

Hi Team Podio. Please consider this request, it means a lot to your customers.