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How to Merge Duplicate Accounts & Contacts in Lightning: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1394867
If you're here, you've set up Duplicate Management per our instructions, your reports are ready, and now you're ready to merge some duplicates. So... how exactly do you merge the duplicate Accounts and Contacts? That's exactly what we'll show you in this article!
- First, be sure you've qualified all your unqualified Contacts
- Next, you'll merge all duplicate Accounts
- Finally, you'll merge duplicate Contacts within Accounts
We recommend you have one duplicate manager at your organization. This person should subscribe to the duplicate reports and follow the steps below on a weekly or monthly basis.
Note: it is imperative that you:
- Have set up Duplicate Management per our instructions
- Do not use Duplicate Management as a replacement for Qualification
- Merge Accounts first and then merge Contacts (we'll show you below)
Ignoring this warning can and will break PatronManager!
1. Before you begin: complete Qualification!
Merging duplicate Accounts and Contacts does NOT replace qualification. Qualification involves additional record handling (e.g. to qualify the related Ticket Order or Donation), so it's important that you complete that process first.
To do: head to your Unqualified Contact List, and complete all qualification - Orders, Donations, and Signups
2. Merge all duplicate Accounts
OK, all your TBQ Contacts, Signups, Ticket Orders, and Donations have been qualified, right?
Good - now we can head to our Duplicate Accounts report and review any potential Account duplicates.
1. Head to the reports tab
2. Select All Reports, then search and click on Duplicate Accounts
3. On the report, you'll see groups of sets of potential duplicates; when you see a set you want to merge, click the Duplicate Set Name link in the first column
4. Use the drop-down arrow and click "Compare & Merge"
5. Check the boxes next to the Accounts you want to merge together and click Next
6. Find the most accurate Account and click "Select all"; now, scroll down and review each row, selecting the data you want to keep for each row
7. When you're done choosing which information will be retained on the final Account, click Next at the bottom of the page
8. Click Merge
9. Back on the Duplicate Record Set, find the Record Count field; if this is higher than "1", you may need to merge again
You can only merge three Accounts at a time, so you may need to repeat the Compare & Merge process to get the Record Count down to 1.
If your Record Count is higher than 1, but the remaining Accounts are not actually duplicates, simply move on to the next step.
10. When you're done with that Duplicate Record Set, head back to your Duplicate Accounts report and continue merging
Repeat the above steps until all the duplicates are gone!
11. Are there Accounts on your report flagged as duplicates - but they're not actually duplicates? Let's take them off the report
Click into the Duplicate Record Set from the report:
Click "Delete"
This will remove the flagged records from your duplicate reports, but be aware that they'll likely be flagged as potential duplicates again if any of the information (e.g. name, address, phone) involved in your matching rules changes, as that will trigger another evaluation.
12. When you're at Total Records = 0, you're done!
3. Merge all duplicate Contacts within Accounts
You've definitely merged all duplicate Accounts, right?
OK, great, let's finish up via our Duplicate Contact report!
1. Back on your Reports tab, search and click on Duplicate Contacts
2. These potential duplicate Contacts are also grouped together; for each set, check the Account ID column to make sure you're only merging Contacts within the same Account
You must merge Accounts first - never merge Contacts that belong to different Accounts (have different Account IDs)!
In the example above, all three duplicate Contacts have the same Account ID, so we're safe to merge.
What if the duplicate Contacts aren't in the same Account?
If you see duplicate Contact records that do not share the same Account ID, go back to the Duplicate Account report and merge their Accounts first. You may need to edit information on one of the Accounts manually (e.g. match the Billing Addresses) to trigger the Salesforce matching rule that makes them appear on the Duplicate Accounts report.
Be sure to pay attention to the Account ID, as it's possible for two different Accounts to have the same Account Name.
In the example above, the two duplicate Contacts have different Account IDs, so we must NOT merge them.
3. OK, you have a duplicate Contact set which only has Contacts from one Account in it? Great, click the Duplicate Set Name link
4. Use the drop-down arrow to click Compare & Merge
5. Check the boxes next to the Contacts you want to merge together and click Next
6. Find the most accurate Contact and click "Select all"; now, scroll down and review each row, selecting the data you want to keep for each row
7. When you're done choosing which information will be retained on the final Contact, click Next at the bottom of the page
8. Click Merge
9. Back on the Duplicate Record Set, find the Record Count field; if this is higher than "1", you may need to merge again
You can only merge three Contacts at a time, so you may need to repeat the Compare & Merge process to get the Record Count down to 1.
If your Record Count is higher than 1, but the remaining Contacts are not actually duplicates, simply move on to the next step.
10. When you're done with that Duplicate Record Set, head back to your Duplicate Contacts report and continue merging
Keep going until you've merged all the duplicates you can! Remember NOT to merge Contacts unless they share the same Account ID.
11. Are there Contacts on your report flagged as duplicates - but they're not actually duplicates? Let's take them off the report
Click into the Duplicate Record Set from the report:
Click "Delete"
This will remove the flagged records from your duplicate reports, but be aware that they'll likely be flagged as potential duplicates again if any of the information (e.g. name, address, phone) involved in your matching rules changes, as that will trigger another evaluation.
12. When you're at Total Records = 0, you're done!
