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How to Prevent, Find, and Merge Duplicate Accounts and Contacts: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/829701
Duplicate Contacts in PatronManager are bad news. When you have duplicate records for the same people, you divide up the information you know about that person - their ticketing history, their donation history, and more - into several silos.
We know these duplicates prevent you from using your data to its fullest potential. That's what this guide is for - to show you how to:
- Prevent creating duplicates,
- Find the duplicates that do exist in your PatronManager account, and
- Merge them when you find them
Heads up! This article pre-dates PatronManager's compatibility with Salesforce Duplicate Management, and was written for use in Salesforce Classic. We're keeping it around because it has still-relevant information about preventing duplicates and about finding/merging duplicates that were around before you started using Salesforce Duplicate Management.
To find and manage duplicates going forward, we strongly recommend following our instructions to configure and use Salesforce Duplicate Management.
1. How to prevent duplicates
You'll prevent duplicates in two key ways. First, be sure to search for existing Contacts before creating new records - you may already have the patron in your database! Second, you'll need to regularly qualify incoming Ticket Orders, Contacts, and Donations. This'll make sure any new patrons are entered in your system properly, and that new transactions get filed correctly.
1.1. Type an individual's name into the global search bar, and look for records with the business card icon
1.2. If you only know part of the name you're looking for, or if you're not sure of the spelling, you can still search using an *
The asterisk works as a wildcard - searching for "Alex*", for example, will bring up any record starting with "Alex":
- An Account named Alex Pagano
- A Contact named Alexander Hamilton
1.3. If you want to see only Contacts or Accounts with your search, use the drop-down menu next to the search bar to select those options
To learn more about searching in PatronManager, check out this article.
Not sure what qualification is or why you should do it? Take a look at this article to learn more.
How the qualification process works depends on what you're qualifying. Here are some how-tos for common qualification tasks:
2. How to find your duplicates
You're doing a great job with prevention, but duplicates do happen - just a reality of maintaining a database.
So how do you know how many you have? Answer: regularly check a report of similar Contact record and merge records as needed. This will keep your data in good shape and ready to help you find your best donation and subscription prospects.
2.1. Click on the "Reports" tab
Or, navigate to it by clicking on the app launcher and finding "Reports"
2.2. Click "New Report (Salesforce Classic)"
You must use the Salesforce Classic report builder because the Lightning report builder does not yet support sorting by record count. Vote up this Idea on the Salesforce IdeaExchange!
2.3. Select the "Contacts & Accounts" report type and click "Create"
2.4. Change the "Show" menu to "All Accounts" and the "Range" menu to "All Time"
2.5. Change the format to "Summary"
2.6. Drag "Last Name" into the blue bar to create a grouping
2.7. Drag "First Name" under "Last Name" in the pale blue bar to create a secondary grouping
2.8. Click on the down arrow next to "Last Name"; hover over Sort Group By, then Record Count. Finally, select Descending
2.9. Click "Save" and fill in the appropriate information; then, click "Save and Run Report"
- Report Name: We suggest something like "Duplicate Contacts and Accounts Report" - make it self explanatory.
- Report Unique Name: This will autofill once you've written in a report name.
- Report Description: Fill out a description with what this report is used for and when and who created it.
- Report Folder: Save this report where you can easily find it again, such as the Contact & Account Reports folder. We suggest this because you'll want to run this report on a regular basis to ensure the cleanest data.
2.10. Look for duplicates
Look through the report for instances where the light-colored rows on the report have two records, or instances where two very similar names come one after another. This will help you identify duplicate contacts, although it won't necessarily catch them all.
Once you've found all your duplicates sorting by last name, another useful grouping to try is email address. For that, just use the one grouping level, and don't forget to sort by record count - descending.
If the report fails to load because there are too many records to display, you'll need to add a filter based on your primary grouping to narrow down the data.
For example, add a filter for "Last Name starts with A".
After you've resolved duplicates with last names beginning with A, adjust the filter to B, and so on.
2.11. Merge them together by navigating to Contacts and/or Accounts individually
We'll give you in-depth instructions for merging.... right now!
Do you have a lot of duplicates, so many that you're overwhelmed at the thought of manually merging them? It happens. We are able to offer assistance in merging Contacts together en masse, but it does come with a cost. You can read more about starting a Data Project here.
3. Merging duplicate Accounts and Contacts in Classic
You can merge Accounts or Contacts manually in Classic when you find duplicates in your PatronManager account that weren't flagged by Salesforce Duplicate Management.
If you're unfamiliar with the records you're merging, ask your colleagues - don't merge willy-nilly!
Merging Accounts
When you merge Accounts, you'll choose the best personal info to keep, such as phone number and address. However, all of the related records from both Accounts - Contacts, Donations, Ticket Orders, etc. - will live on the final, merged Account. You won't lose related data in a merge.
3.1. Navigate to Salesforce Classic by clicking on your profile photo; then, click "Switch to Salesforce Classic"
As part of our continual adoption of Salesforce's Lightning Experience, we're working on incorporating a more robust duplicate management system. For now, however, Account and Contact merging needs to be done in Classic mode.
3.2. Use the report you've created in part two to find the duplicate Accounts/Contacts you want to merge
- Before you can merge duplicate Contacts, they must be in the same Account.
- In order to merge duplicate Accounts, the Account names must start with the same word/letters.
Accounts must start with the same letters/words in order to be merged. In the case of this example, we need to delete the "The" from this account in order for the Account Merging tool to recognize the duplicates.
3.3. Click on the Merge Accounts tool located on the Accounts tab
3.4. Search for your duplicate Accounts in the Merge tool
You can use the whole or the first part of the Account Name to find your duplicate Accounts here. Only enter the name that's the exact match between the two Accounts. In this example, "Daniel Pesick" will work, and so will "Daniel," but "Pesick" will not.
3.5. Select the records to merge and click "Next"
You can merge either two or three Accounts together at a time.
There may be other Accounts that show in the results that you do not wish to merge. Just deselect those in the checkbox column at the left.
3.6. Select the values you want to keep on the merged record
1. You can pick and choose the information from each record you want to keep on the newly merged Account. Compare the two records and select the radio button next to the information you'd like to keep.
Whatever information you do not select will be lost. If you want to keep other data and put it in a different field (like a second phone number or address, for example), copy and paste it into a temporary document of some sort. You can edit the Account record later and add that in.
2. Some kinds of roll-up fields are editable and selectable when merging Accounts but are automatically recalculated on a nightly basis. You don't need to worry about which value you select for these fields.
3. Once you've selected the field values you want to keep, click the Merge button.
PatronManager fields that you can ignore when merging Accounts, as they'll automatically recalculate each night:
- Amount Donated This Fiscal Year
- Amount Donated in Last # Days
- Last Donation Amount
- Lifetime Order Count
- Lifetime Single Ticket $
- Lifetime Subscription $
- Lifetime Membership $
- Order Count Last # Days
- Single Ticket $ Last # Days
- Membership $ Last # Days
3.7. Click on the newly merged Account in your Recent Items to merge any duplicate Contacts
While you're here, you can add any additional phone numbers or email addresses you temporarily saved when merging the two Accounts earlier.
3.8. Navigate back to Lightning Experience by clicking "Switch to Lightning Experience"
Merging duplicate Contacts
Whenever you merge Accounts, it's likely you'll have some duplicate Contacts left over that will also need to be merged.
When you merge Contacts, you'll choose the best personal info to keep, such as phone number and address. However, all of the related records from both Contacts - Donations, Ticket Orders, etc. - will live on the final, merged Contact. You won't lose related data in a merge.
1. Navigate to Salesforce Classic by clicking on your profile photo; then, click "Switch to Salesforce Classic"
As part of our continual adoption of Salesforce's Lightning Experience, we're working on incorporating a more robust duplicate management system. For now, however, Account and Contact merging needs to be done in Classic mode.
2. Click on an Account record
3. Scroll down to the Contacts related list, and click on the "Merge Contacts" button on at the top of the Contacts related list
1. Click on "Edit Layout" at the top of the Account record
2. Make sure the Individual Layout is selected; if it's not, click on the Layout name and select Individual Layout
3. Scroll down to the Contacts related list and click on the wrench icon
4. Click the + sign to the right of the Buttons heading
5. Check the box next to "Merge Contacts" and click OK
6. Click the Save button in the layout palette
7. Boom! The button should now appear on the Contacts related list on Accounts with an Individual record type
4. Merge the Contacts together
This process mirrors that of merging Accounts.
Select the records that you want to merge. Deselect anyone who should not be merged. Then, click the Next button.
Note that all Contacts in the Account can be merged together even if they are not similar in name. Take care with Household or Business Accounts that have multiple people in them to not merge unique individuals who should stay as two separate Contacts.
5. Select the values you want to retain for the Contact and click "Merge"
Whatever information you do not select will be lost. If you want to keep other data and put it in a different field (like a second email address as you see below), copy and paste it into a temporary document of some sort. You can edit the Contact record later and add it back in.
6. Navigate back to Lightning Experience by clicking "Switch to Lightning Experience"
