Best Practice: Duplicating a property listing for re-marketing / re-letting
When a property is being marketed for a second time (re-letting after a tenant has moved out, a new sales phase following a buyer pulling out), the natural reaction is to reuse the same listing. However, this often leads to problems — it is better to duplicate the record and clear it.
Why not reuse the old record?
The old record often contains data from the previous marketing campaign:
- Signatures (e.g. from the previous tenant’s self-declaration) — stored in the file field
- Uploaded documents (copies of ID cards, pay slips of the previous tenant)
- Activities and emails sent to the previous tenant
- Price negotiation notes that are no longer relevant
If you simply link a new tenant now and have them fill out the form again:
- The old signatures remain in the file field → this can cause confusion later on (“is this from the old or new tenant?”)
- The new signature overwrites the old one → no history of the previous letting can be traced anymore
- Activity history gets mixed up → reporting becomes inaccurate
Recommended workflow
- Duplicate the old record in onOffice (address or property → ‘Duplicate’ action)
- In the new record, clear all fields belonging to the old transaction:
- Signatures (clear or delete file fields)
- Uploaded documents (tab “Files” → remove old transaction documents)
- Transaction-specific custom fields (status, notes, negotiation status)
- Assign a new property/transaction number (or at least a clearly recognisable suffix such as “-2” or “-New”)
- The new tenant/buyer is linked to the new, empty record
- The old record remains unchanged as a history entry
Special case: Selective duplication not possible in onOffice
By default, onOffice duplicates all fields of the record — you cannot choose to “copy only these fields, not those”. This is a particular pain point for large installations.
Workaround: After duplicating, manually clear the transaction-specific fields — solution by Guido Lokitech (Wüstenrot) and confirmed in the onOffice Tips and Tricks Community.
> 💡 Tip: Create a checklist of the fields that typically need to be cleared after duplication. Follow the same steps every time you relist → saves you from having to search.
Related