New to Marketo -- No CRM Integration Yet -- Same Contact in Different Partitions?

[cjmendoza1894]

Hi!

Our company just started using Marketo and we have not integrated our CRM yet.

Is it possible to have the same contact in two different data partitions? Or can we choose to have 2 of the same contact so that there can be one record in each data partition? 

Thanks!

[Floyd_Alvares2]

Hi @cjmendoza1894 ,

It is not possible to have the same contact (record) existing in multiple partitions. You can have the contact in one partition, and accessible by multiple workspaces.

I guess the question is why would you want to duplicate the record across multiple partitions in the first place?

[Katja_Keesom]

Technically, that's not entirely correct. Out of the box you are correct, but you could ask Marketo to set up a secondary dupe key, allowing just for that scenario. I do agree however that you would need to carefully review whether allowing for these duplications is indeed the best solution, as it introduces a lot of complexity as well.

In general I would not recommend implementing a secondary dupe key, but I have seen use cases where it was the best solution.

[Floyd_Alvares2]

Hi Katja,

Interesting, I am aware of secondary dupe keys. However, if both the records have the same dupe key values. Marketo would not be able to create the second record in a new partition - either through forms or REST API.

Have you experienced a different outcome?

[Katja_Keesom]

Hi Floyd,

The situation I am working with is where Person Partition is set as secondary dupe key for some of the source types. That means that if I have a person with emailA@mail.com in partition A and I have a record with emailA@mail.com in a csv file that I am uploading into a list in partition B, it wil create that as a new record, as the combination of emailA@mail.com / partition B does not exist yet. That is of course assuming that List Upload is one of the source types where this extra dupe key is set up.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Katja