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  • How to prevent duplicate entries from being added to Google Sheets and sent via Email by Zapier?

Hello, currently I am transferring leads from Perspective to Google Sheets using the Zap "Create Spreadsheet Row in Google Sheets" and then sending them to my clients using the Zap "Send Outbound Email in Email by Zapier". I have the issue that sometimes people sign up twice, and I don't want to create a new spreadsheet row or send an email to my clients for the duplicate entries. How can I set it up so that the Google Sheet is first checked to see if the email address already exists, and if so, stop the process at that point? I have already looked into deduplication, but I find too little information to implement it correctly. I would appreciate a guide on how to do this. Thank you very much.

Hi @Benjamin-109 

 

To achieve that you need a couple of things to change in this automation

 

  1. Change the trigger. Instead of using “When a new spreadsheet row is added to google sheet” to the trigger where people are submitting the form through which this google sheet is populated
  2. Then add a step to “Lookup spreadsheet row” This is an amazing function that looks up for a certain value in a column and returns the complete row when match is found. If no match is found, it adds the data in the spreadsheet

     

  3. Then from there, using Zapier path to check if an existing row was returned or new data was created
  4. In case existing row was returned, you don’t need to generate an email
  5. In case of new row was added, then generate an email to your client. 

Happy to help. Thanks

Hi @zaki_readylogic,

thank you very much for the support. The Zap "Lookup Spreadsheet Row in Google Sheets" now works, and no additional row is generated when an email address already exists in it. However, the next Zap "Send Outbound Email in Email by Zapier" is still triggered regardless. Is there a solution for this?

@zaki_readylogic An additional note: In "Email by Zapier," I can only select "Send Outbound Email" as an event and cannot perform a preliminary check of a Google Sheet.

@Benjamin-109 , great on the trigger. 

For the check, add a Path step in between and check the trigger’s response. There might be a variable in its output that will tell whether a new row was created or not. Define that condition in the “Path” step’s filters (there will be 2 paths). 

one path will generate an email and another will do nothing. 

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