I’m using the workbench to upload some collection objects and I noticed that it has created a duplicate of myself. How do I prevent this from happening? I had a column for last name, first name, and middle initial for the cataloger.
Hi @fergashl,
Specify only creates a new Agent if any of the values in the Last Name, Middle Name, and First Name fields differ from the data stored in those fields in your agent’s record. Note that any difference between a field in your WorkBench data set and existing Agent record will cause a duplicate to be created.
To make the matching behavior ignore fields with blank values, allowing the WorkBench to match a first name and last name to an agent record that includes a middle initial (if it’s not included in the spreadsheet), you can change that behavior by clicking on the 
next to the field mapping:
You can configure the WorkBench mapping to ensure that all records in a particular table (such as Agent) match existing ones in your database.
You can click on Must Match in the mapping interface:
From here, you can make it so that all agents must match ones that already exist in your database.
This will highlight Agent records that do not match existing records in red preventing you from uploading.
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The names in each of the fields for Last Name, Middle Name, and First Name matched. Could it be that I am listed as Dr. in the database or is it only supposed to recognize those three fields?
Specify should only match based on the fields that are present in the import. The only way it could create a duplicate would be if there is some difference in another field (so if you had a ‘Title’ field in the import document but it conflicted with the “Dr.” title in the database since it was empty or mismatched).
Gotcha, I think what I did was put a period after the middle initial, whoops! Thanks!
I encounter the same situation. I re-import the exact same file to make sure that the data match and it creates duplicates.