Resolving Duplicate Contacts Issue in Clay's Companies Table

Elias S. · 2024-11-07 18:53:35.350989+00

Hi! I'm having an issue in Clay where I have a Companies Table and include a column for Find Contacts at Company, which should of course find people at these companies and push them to a Peoples Table. The issue is that if I do such a search, and it yields results to get pushed to the People Table, and I then delete some of these people from the People Table, and the go back to the Companies Table and run that Find Contacts cell again for the same company/companies, it doesn't add the same contacts again. I have tried to disable de-dupe, remove the "exclude people" from the search, and more but nothing works. It's like if contacts were once found, they can't be added again. Is there any way around this? Because otherwise I essentially have to create a new table for this search to work again, which is a huge hassle.

Resolving Duplicate Contacts Issue in Clay's Companies Table | Clay

12 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Stefano
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Hi Elias! Thank you for reaching out. Could you please provide me with a link to one of the tables where you try and do this? It would be helpful for me to be able to visualise what you are doing.
Elias S.
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Hey Stefano, of course! Here's a company table: https://app.clay.com/workspaces/367964/workbooks/wb_rhxHmCEM3gsF/tables/t_KVxF2TutAR76/views/gv_8N2TgNCTfHdM And the People Table I'm trying to push to: https://app.clay.com/workspaces/367964/workbooks/wb_rhxHmCEM3gsF/tables/t_adB4DAK9Sr5B/views/gv_pHkSxTKPVn8W If you try running the Find Contacts cell in the Company Table right now it doesn't add any people to add to the people table, even though there are contacts there.
Stefano
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Thank you! I will have a look at it now and will get back to you.
Elias S.
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Much appreciated!
Stefano
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Hey, sorry quick follow-up question, just to make sure I understand this. Did you accidentally delete a contact from the 'Find People' table (which is generated from the 'Find Company' table), and now you're trying to get that contact back into the 'Find People' table when you re-run the search?
Elias S.
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Well that's just one example of isolating the issue: The issue is simply that I often run this "Find Contacts" cell, knowing that Clay can find people there, but that they aren't added to the people table. This example of having deleted contacts and it then not working is just a way to replicate the issue in a simple way!
Elias S.
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I just don't know why it often stops working, but noticed that this was a very clear case!
Stefano
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Hi Elias, I cannot pinpoint which one of the columns you are having trouble with. I am not sure what parameters you are trying to work with, but could you please run a standalone people search with the HSB.se domain to see if the people search you already ran has already found an exhaustive list of all the contacts available that work at the company. This would be done by creating a new "Find People" table and under "Companies" selecting "Comma-Separated List" and then inserting the domain. Then you can run the standalone search to find contacts at that company. If nothing else is returned, this means that there are no results for the given search parameters. The image below should help you visualise this better. CleanShot 2024-11-07 at 15.11.01@2x.png Please let me know what the results are.
Elias S.
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Hey Stefano – the problem is when I run either of these cells (duplicated these column as a test as well) I did exactly that – when I ran the search using a comma-separated list for HSB.se the leads did indeed show up! But in the case of right now, these leads aren't in the People Table as you can see, but even when I run these cells it doesn't add them.
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Bo (.
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Hi Elias! I understand your frustration with the contact re-finding issue. Let me provide both an immediate fix and a better way to handle this going forward: For your current situation: 1. Create a new "Find People" search with your target companies 2. Export these results to a new table 3. Use the “Write to Table” function to add these contacts back to your main People Table To prevent this issue in the future, here's a better approach than deleting contacts: 1. Add a Checkbox column in your People Table (Right side of table > Create new > checkbox) 2. Instead of deleting contacts, simply check the box for ones you want to hide 3. Create a View Filter to show only unchecked contacts 4. You can use this checkbox in conditional formulas for enrichment to skip checked contacts This way, you maintain all your data while keeping your view clean, and you won't run into the re-finding issue again. Let me know if you need help setting any of this up!
Elias S.
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Hey Bo – thanks, I'll give it a try tomorrow!
Channeled
APP
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Hi Elias S.! This thread was recently closed by our Support team. If you have a moment, please share your feedback:

Stefano
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Hi Elias! Thank you for reaching out. Could you please provide me with a link to one of the tables where you try and do this? It would be helpful for me to be able to visualise what you are doing.
Elias S.
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Hey Stefano, of course! Here's a company table: https://app.clay.com/workspaces/367964/workbooks/wb_rhxHmCEM3gsF/tables/t_KVxF2TutAR76/views/gv_8N2TgNCTfHdM And the People Table I'm trying to push to: https://app.clay.com/workspaces/367964/workbooks/wb_rhxHmCEM3gsF/tables/t_adB4DAK9Sr5B/views/gv_pHkSxTKPVn8W If you try running the Find Contacts cell in the Company Table right now it doesn't add any people to add to the people table, even though there are contacts there.
Stefano
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Thank you! I will have a look at it now and will get back to you.
Elias S.
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Much appreciated!
Stefano
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Hey, sorry quick follow-up question, just to make sure I understand this. Did you accidentally delete a contact from the 'Find People' table (which is generated from the 'Find Company' table), and now you're trying to get that contact back into the 'Find People' table when you re-run the search?
Elias S.
·
·
Well that's just one example of isolating the issue: The issue is simply that I often run this "Find Contacts" cell, knowing that Clay can find people there, but that they aren't added to the people table. This example of having deleted contacts and it then not working is just a way to replicate the issue in a simple way!
Elias S.
·
·
I just don't know why it often stops working, but noticed that this was a very clear case!
Stefano
·
·
Hi Elias, I cannot pinpoint which one of the columns you are having trouble with. I am not sure what parameters you are trying to work with, but could you please run a standalone people search with the HSB.se domain to see if the people search you already ran has already found an exhaustive list of all the contacts available that work at the company. This would be done by creating a new "Find People" table and under "Companies" selecting "Comma-Separated List" and then inserting the domain. Then you can run the standalone search to find contacts at that company. If nothing else is returned, this means that there are no results for the given search parameters. The image below should help you visualise this better. CleanShot 2024-11-07 at 15.11.01@2x.png Please let me know what the results are.
Elias S.
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Hey Stefano – the problem is when I run either of these cells (duplicated these column as a test as well) I did exactly that – when I ran the search using a comma-separated list for HSB.se the leads did indeed show up! But in the case of right now, these leads aren't in the People Table as you can see, but even when I run these cells it doesn't add them.
Loading attachments
Bo (.
·
·
Hi Elias! I understand your frustration with the contact re-finding issue. Let me provide both an immediate fix and a better way to handle this going forward: For your current situation: 1. Create a new "Find People" search with your target companies 2. Export these results to a new table 3. Use the “Write to Table” function to add these contacts back to your main People Table To prevent this issue in the future, here's a better approach than deleting contacts: 1. Add a Checkbox column in your People Table (Right side of table > Create new > checkbox) 2. Instead of deleting contacts, simply check the box for ones you want to hide 3. Create a View Filter to show only unchecked contacts 4. You can use this checkbox in conditional formulas for enrichment to skip checked contacts This way, you maintain all your data while keeping your view clean, and you won't run into the re-finding issue again. Let me know if you need help setting any of this up!
Elias S.
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Hey Bo – thanks, I'll give it a try tomorrow!
Channeled
APP
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Hi Elias S.! This thread was recently closed by our Support team. If you have a moment, please share your feedback: