Finding duplicates

A knowledge base built from several questionnaires ends up with the same question asked more than once, worded differently each time. Duplicates are worth clearing out: two items answering the same question can give two different answers, depending on which one gets used.

ResponseHub matches duplicates on meaning rather than wording, so “Do you encrypt data at rest?” and “Is stored customer data encrypted?” are found as duplicates even though they share almost no words.

Run a duplicate check

Duplicates are only found when you ask for them — nothing is scanned in the background, and the Potential Duplicates section on an item stays empty until a check has been run.

1. Go to Knowledge Base and select Find Duplicates.

2. Select Check for Duplicates.

   The scan covers your whole knowledge base and can take a few minutes on a large one. You don’t need to stay on the screen.

Read the results

The results list every item that has potential duplicates, under Duplicate Knowledge Base Items. Select an item to see what it was matched against. If nothing is found, the screen says “No duplicate items found”.

You can also see matches for a single item without running the whole scan again: open the item and expand Potential Duplicates.

Matches are candidates, not verdicts

Two items asking a similar question aren’t necessarily duplicates — questionnaires often ask about the same control in ways that genuinely need different answers. Read both before deciding.

Resolve a duplicate

Once you have decided which item to keep, delete the other, or edit it so it answers a distinct question. See knowledge base items for both.

Next steps

• Knowledge base items
• Importing from completed questionnaires — the usual source of duplicates