Enquiry de-duping

Overview

If the same person enquires about the same resident at the same home more than once, Found doesn't create a second enquiry — it adds the new enquiry to the existing one instead. This happens automatically, for every way an enquiry can arrive: entered manually, imported from a CSV, submitted via Marketplace, taken over the phone, or sent in from another system. Staff don't need to check for duplicates or do anything to trigger this.

Found only avoids creating a duplicate when the enquiry is about the exact same resident, at the exact same home, and there's already an open enquiry for them. That means the same referrer can have several genuinely separate, open enquiries at once — one for each resident they've referred.

How it decides what's a duplicate

For Found to treat a new enquiry as a duplicate of an existing one, all of these need to be true:

• It's for the same resident (not just the same contact or referrer)

• It's for the same home

• The existing enquiry for that resident is still open

If any of these don't match, Found creates a brand new enquiry instead of merging.

Important things to know

• A referrer with several residents gets several enquiries. If one professional refers two different residents to the same home, that's two separate enquiries, not a duplicate, because they're for different people.

• Two different contacts enquiring about the same resident won't dedupe against each other. For example, if two siblings independently enquire about the same parent at the same home, and neither is already listed as a contact on the other's enquiry, Found creates two separate enquiries rather than merging them — even though it's the same resident and home.

• Closed enquiries are never reopened. If a resident's enquiry has already been closed or won, and they (or their referrer) enquire again, Found starts a new enquiry rather than merging into the old one.

• Enquiries with no named resident behave differently depending on who's asking. Someone enquiring for themselves, with no resident named, will still be matched to an existing open enquiry by contact and home. A professional referrer submitting an enquiry with no resident named won't be matched at all — every submission creates a new enquiry.

• Bookings always create a new enquiry. Creating a booking never merges into an existing enquiry, even if one is already open for the same resident and home.

• A merge can only raise the temperature, never lower it. If the new enquiry is hotter than the existing one, the existing enquiry is upgraded to match. A cooler repeat enquiry doesn't cool it back down.

• There's no pop-up or warning. Found doesn't show a "possible duplicate" message to staff. The only way to tell an enquiry was merged is to check its timeline — a brand new enquiry shows a "created" entry, a merged one shows an "activity added" entry instead.

• This is different from duplicate contact checks. Adding the same contact twice on one enquiry form is blocked separately. And when adding a new contact, Found may prompt if their details match an existing contact — that's about matching people, not enquiries.