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All About Automatic Qualification: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1907747
While qualification is very important, sometimes Ticket Orders and Signup Form signups will skip manual qualification through automatic qualification.
This is helpful, limiting the number of records you need to manually qualify.
But how does the magical, mystical process of automatic qualification work? In this article, we'll look at:
- Criteria a Contact must meet for automatic qualification
- Some things to keep in mind about automatic qualification
And at the end, we'll go over some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
When does automatic qualification happen?
With automatic qualification, PatronManager goes through a series of steps to figure out whether or not to auto-qualify a record.
We've got a handy flow chart for you, and we'll go into more details below.
First of all, is this from a Ticket Order or Signup Form?
Great! Are there any potential matches?
In this case, the system will automatically qualify this record as a new Contact in your account if the following fields are filled in:
- First Name
- Last Name
The new qualified Contact will have the Account and Contact record types and Account naming convention set up in PatronSignup Settings.
This will only happen if you've enabled mobile tickets! If you haven't, then all new Contacts will come in as To Be Qualified Contacts and need manual qualification from the Unqualified Contact List.
Then it's time for PatronManager to try matching! There must be at least a
All right, PatronManager will now see if other populated fields match exactly, such as First Name, Salutation, City, and State.
Now the system will look for similar matches, instead of exact matches. Specifically, the system will:
- Search for a fuzzy Phone match
- Stripping all non-numeric characters to compare the right-most seven digits
- For example, 1-203-397-0500 is considered similar to (203) 397-0500 or 2033970500
- Stripping all non-numeric characters to compare the right-most seven digits
- Search for a fuzzy Street Address match
- Comparing only numeric characters
- For example, 123 Main St and 123 7th Ave are considered similar
- Comparing only numeric characters
- Search for a fuzzy Postal Code/ZIP match
- Comparing the left-most five digits
- For example, 06525 is considered similar to 06525-1234
- Comparing the left-most five digits
Sounds like a good match, then! The system will automatically qualify the new Contact for you, merging it with the existing Contact.
Then you'll need to manually qualify this Contact.
Then you'll need to manually qualify this Contact.
Then you'll need to manually qualify this Contact.
Then you'll need to manually qualify this Contact.
What are some things to keep in mind about automatic qualification?
Checking for matches is generally fuzzy
This means that, when checking for matches, automatic qualification is:
-
Case-insensitive - discrepancies between capitalization will be noted
- Example: Bruce Wayne, bruce wayne, Bruce wayne, bruce Wayne will all match to Bruce Wayne
-
Smart about (some) common formatting - discrepancies in abbreviations, especially in addresses, will be noted
- Example: ave. and ave will match to Avenue
Existing Contact wins
When automatic qualification occurs, the Contact ID for the Contact record won't change, meaning that all tracking for that Contact will remain on the existing record in your account.
Additionally, if there are discrepancies between capitalization or address formatting, the existing Contact's values will be preserved. This means that if you've corrected the formatting to match your organization's preferences, you'll only have to do so once!
Contacts in the Unqualified Contacts List are ignored
Automatic qualification will never merge a new To Be Qualified Contact with an existing To Be Qualified Contact.
Imagine this scenario: Jefferson Pierce is making their first Donation to your organization. They also decide, a few minutes later, to sign up for your email list via a Signup Form.
In a scenario like this, Jefferson Pierce would have one Contacts in the Unqualified Contacts List for you to qualify: the Contact from the Donation.
Brand new data is preserved
If data exists on the new record that was previously blank on the existing Contact, that data is preserved during automatic qualification.
For example, if the existing Contact didn't have a Salutation or Phone Number filled out, but the new Contact does, PatronManager will retain the new, filled out data during automatic qualification.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
You sure can! To find a list, go to the PatronTicket Orders tab and change the View to "Automatically Qualified."
Donations will never qualify automatically. When a Donation comes in online, it will always go into the Unqualified Contacts List.
This is because the qualification process for Donations includes handling options to acknowledgment.
No. Imported Contacts will not go through the automatic qualification process.
No. Contacts from integrations, such as PatronStorm or Mailchimp, will not go through the automatic qualification process.
No, automatic qualification only applies to new incoming Contacts.
If you'd like to merge duplicates in your account, check out this article for more information.
If you rely on the manual qualification process as a quality check to adjust the formatting on new Contacts, such as to format their Phone or Address a specific way, we recommend setting up a Contacts report or List View to adjust formatting instead.
In the report or List View, we recommend adding a filter for Created Date equals [DESIRED DATE RANGE] to show you only newly-created Contacts
Additionally, if you only wish to see new Contacts created online (i.e. not created by your internal staff Users), we suggest also adding filters and filter logic for Order Origin equals Online,Portal OR Signup Form does not equal [blank].