Duplicates Report

In addition to merging people when you find duplicate records using the Instant Search, you can view all of your system's duplicates in one place using the Duplicates Report. Merging your system's duplicates is extremely important, as this helps to ensure that there aren't extraneous people records for your constituents. Navigate to Reports > Duplicates to review the duplicates and start merging.

On the Duplicates Report, you will see a list of potential duplicates in your system. Before you click merge (or skip) on any set of duplicates, however, please pay attention to the columns on the page, as they will help you better determine if a suggested duplicate is actually a duplicate. These columns are: Name, DOB, Email, and Address. We use a combination of these fields in order to determine whether two or more people records are potential duplicates. The columns will display any matching (or mismatching) information to better inform your decision on whether you should merge the records into one. If the information between people records matches, the text will be colored in gray. If the information does not match, the text will be highlighted and presented with a small exclamation point to alert you of a difference.

When you are ready to merge, click the blue “Merge” button next to the right of the group of people identified as duplicates. From here, you will be taken to a normal Merge Users page, and you can merge them as outlined in this tutorial.

Please note that clicking the “Merge” button will not automatically merge the records. You will be given another opportunity to confirm the merge on the next page, and you are not committed to merge the records once you click “Merge.” If you decide not to merge the users presented, simply click the “Back” button to return to the Duplicates page.

If there are any duplicate groups that you do not want to merge, you can click the blue "Skip" button. This will remove the group from the Duplicates Report. 

ATTENTION: Many people ask if there exists a “Merge All” button that would enable the you to simply merge all of the duplicates at once. This button does not exist, but it’s for good reason. Since each set of duplicate records is different, individual decisions have to be made prior to merging them. In some cases, an office will have multiple records for a person on purpose and won’t want to merge them. Our system would not recognize this and will include those people in the duplicates report anyways. In other cases, two duplicate records might match due to email address, but their mailing addresses could be different. This situation requires the staffer to make a decision as to which address should be kept on file. By merging all, the system would remove the ability to make these critical decisions and could lead to suboptimal merges in which desired data are dropped and outdated info is kept.

With that said, in cases where your office still wishes to proceed with a mass-merge, our support developers built an auto-merger that can assist and merge many duplicate groups at once based on decisions made by the office. Simply hop into chat or send us an email to [e-mail], and we will be happy to provide more information!