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Merge Tool Guide

Updated

Use the Contact Merge Tool to combine duplicate contact records into a single contact. This helps keep CRM data accurate for reporting and day-to-day workflows, and it’s often required because contacts with related financial or booking records can’t be deleted.

In this article:

  • You can’t delete contacts that have outstanding invoices or are booked on current events.
  • Duplicate contacts create confusion and can break reporting and workflows (for example, booking the “wrong” contact onto an event).
  • Merging consolidates invoices, bookings, and event history across the selected records into one contact.

Step 1: Open Potential Contact Duplicates

  • Go to the Control Panel.
  • Under the CRM section, select Potential Contact Duplicates.

Step 2: Identify duplicates

  • Review the list of potential duplicates. The list may span multiple pages, so use pagination as needed.
  • Each row shows a potential conflict and the reason for the match. The left and right columns represent the two contact records involved.
  • Select a row to view options to open either contact record or to merge them.
  • Click Merge.

Step 3: Review the merge screen

  • You’ll see two columns (one per contact) and a middle Merged column showing what the merged record will contain.
  • To open a contact record from this screen, select the name/ID link at the top of either column.
  • Fields that differ between the two contacts are highlighted to indicate a conflict.
    • If both contacts have the same value, the field is not highlighted.
    • If one contact has a value and the other is blank, the populated value is selected automatically.
    • If both contacts have different values, you must choose which value to keep.

Step 4: Complete the merge

  • Work through highlighted fields and select the value you want to keep in the merged record.
  • Scroll to review additional related information (for example, attended events). The merged result is shown in the middle column.
  • When you’re satisfied, click Merge in the top-right.
  • Confirm when prompted.
  • Repeat for additional duplicates as needed.

Good to know

  • Once a duplicate has been merged, it no longer appears in the Potential Contact Duplicates list.
  • A merge does not create a new contact ID. The merged record keeps the newer contact ID (IDs are sequential, so the higher number is the newer record).

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