Removing duplicate values within a Marketo field

[Dhanush_Ganesh]

Hi all,

I have a question regarding the field value update in MKTO.  Our Marketing team uploads a list every month.

If a user comes in via first list import, their "X" field gets updated with value "A".

Next time the same user comes in via list import, their "X" field has a value "B". MKTO automatically does only the "Update", so the "X" field will have a value "B". We can create a temp field to store that value and make "append" functionality to  "X" field to say "A,B".

3rd time, user comes in via list import and "X" field has value "A" again. If we use append, "X" field is gonna say "A,B,A", which is not a best practice.

PS : Marketing doesn't have the track of the data that they upload. They don't know if the same user was part of all imports with different "X" field value. They want to add the field values to the "X" field not overwrite or update.

How can we avoid the field value "A,B,A" and say only "A,B"?

#listupload #marketo

[Darshil_Shah1 · Accepted solution]

A webhook-compatible service (like Flowboost) could do this with ease. Basically, it should be able to read the data, check and remove the duplicate field values, and send it back to Marketo. I'm not sure what the typical size of your list imports is, but the larger the # records, the greater the processing time will be.

[SanfordWhiteman]

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A webhook-compatible service (like Flowboost) could do this with ease.

Indeed! There are lots of different ways to remove dupes in a multivalued string using FlowBoost (i.e. using JS).

Here’s an easy 6-liner:

let delimiter = ";";

let ws = "\\\\s*";
let splitter = new RegExp(ws + delimiter + ws);
original = {{Lead.Your Field}}.split(splitter);

let deduped = Array.from(new Set(original));

dedupedStringified = deduped.join(";");

 Then you map dedupedStringified back to the field in your Webhook » Response Mappings. Presto!

P.S. How it works: new Set(Array) dedupes automatically, since unlike Arrays, Sets are unique. Then you turn the Set back into a regular Array and finally join back into a String.

[Dhanush_Ganesh]

Thanks @SanfordWhiteman 

[Dhanush_Ganesh]

Thank you so much for the suggestion @Darshil_Shah1 .