Merging Duplicate Contacts

From time to time, you may notice that you may have accidentally entered duplicate Contacts in the Donor Management System; contacts that are supposed to be the same but are listed more than once.

Merging (or Deduping) your duplicate Contacts should be an important and regular part of your data hygiene best practices. This ensures that all of your data is easily searchable and ready to be analyzed.

What is Merging?

Merging refers to combining Contacts that happen to be complete or partial duplicates of each other.

Merging can be done in two different ways:

• Merging a single Contact (Single Merge): on your Contacts Tab, you might come across duplicated Contacts that can be merged into one.
• Merging multiple Contacts at once (Mass Merge): an advanced action applied to all existing Contacts on the DMS aiming to find all possible duplicates based on set rules.

Why is Merging Important?

Charities that run successful campaigns often leverage patterns and trends based on demographics, behaviours and other insights about each contact.

Let's say you just finished up a four-month fundraising campaign starting in January and ending in April - and you notice you have a few repeat donors in your DMS Contacts list. One of these donors gifted equal amounts in January, February and April. Recognizing this trend, you reach out and are able to convert this donor into a monthly donor.

However, what if you misspelled the donor’s name and created a duplicate entry? One entry with the correct donor’s name shows they gifted an amount in January and April. In the duplicate entry with the misspelled name, their profile only shows one donation in February. When viewing the data independently, it’s unclear if there’s a trend. As a result, you may miss the opportunity to convert this donor into a monthly donor.

In short, merging contacts helps ensure that you only need to pull these types of insights from a single contact rather than juggling and verifying the information from duplicate listings. And with a well-organized Contacts list, charities can focus their energy on what matters the most - engaging with their donors.

Considerations for Merging

When to Single Merge

• We recommend that charities do a single merge whenever they notice an instance of a duplicate contact.
• Resolving duplicate contacts can be done quickly and effortlessly as it only requires a few clicks to merge two contacts.

When to Mass Merge

• Finding duplicates should be done on a regular basis.
• The frequency is mostly dependent on how many Contacts are on your DMS at any time, but also how many Contacts are added on a daily basis.
• A bigger, more active donor base should be checked for duplicates more regularly.

Merging MailChimp Details & Summary Fields

Merging MailChimp and Summary Fields

• When selecting which information to overwrite, match or add, you will see two sections: MailChimp Details and Summary Fields.
• The DMS will automatically identify the duplicated information and will add (not overwrite) anything that is not a perfect match.
• You won’t be able to uncheck the boxes in these sections, to ensure that all contact and contribution data will be preserved and merged.

How to Merge Contacts

Single Merge

When browsing or searching your Contacts Tab, you might encounter a duplicated Contact. Combining these two Contacts is known as a Merge Action.

Or, follow the step-by-step instructions below on how to perform a single merge of two duplicate Contacts.

1. Visit your Contacts tab and select two Contacts to merge.

Select Contacts to merge

2. From the Actions menu, select Merge contacts.

How to complete a Merge Action to merge two contacts.

3. You will be directed to the Merge Contacts page where you can select which details to Merge, add or ignore.

Single Merge Actions

4. On the Merge Page, you can find several additional options before finalizing the merge.

 Options to help simplify a Single Merge.

• a. If you click Flip between original and duplicate contacts., this lets you designate which of the two Contacts is the one to be kept and which one is a duplicate.
  • Generally, the duplicated Contact is the one which contains the most out-of-date information.
• b. If you click Mark this pair as not a duplicate., this marks both Contacts as not duplicates of each other.
  • This, in turn, will leave them out of every subsequent Mass Merging process.
• c. If you click Show/hide rows with the same data on each contact record., this hides identical fields so that you only need to review the differing information.

5. Before completing the Merge, it is advised to review all the fields and consider a few things below.

How to preserve the Contact details on the right.

6. Contacts are Merged from left to right. If you do not check off any of the Merge buttons, the contact on the left will be merged into the one on the right, resulting in only the right contact remaining.
The Contact detail on the left will replace the Contact detail on the right for any Merge box checked on

8. Some fields will not be editable and will be greyed out on this page to preserve any necessary information. This includes information related to Contributions, Activities, Groups, and Mailings so it cannot be overwritten.

9. Select the Merge button at the bottom of the page to Merge the Contacts.

10. You will be forwarded to the remaining Contact’s Profile Page.

Mass Merge

The Mass Merge process is set to detect all possible duplicate Contacts within your DMS. It differs from a Single Merge since it does not require user input to identify the duplicates but rather follows a set of rules.

Mass Merging will need to be completed in two steps; first for Individual Contacts, then for Organizations. Households can only be Single Merged.

1. From your Contacts tab, under Advanced Actions, select Merge Duplicate Individuals or Merge Duplicate Organizations.Select Merge Duplicate Individuals

2. You will be taken to a landing page where you can mark potential duplicates as "Not a Duplicate" in necessary. Or select Merge to merge two duplicate Contacts.Select Merge to review the details before merging

3. After selecting Merge, the profile on the RIGHT will be retained by default.The Right profile will be retained

4. BUT if you select any of the available merge boxes, the details on the LEFT will overwrite the details on the RIGHT.Merge box: the address on the Left will overwrite the address on the Right

Mass Merge Actions

Perform select actions on potential duplicates. In order to retain the correct details you need, it is not advised to use these buttons.

• Refresh Duplicates: updates the list. Used when Contacts have been individually Merged.
• Batch Merge Selected Duplicates: merges only the selected (checkbox) Contacts and duplicates.
• Batch Merge All Duplicates: merges all duplicates listed, regardless of them being selected or not.
• Flip Selected Duplicates: flips between selected (checkbox) original and duplicate Contacts. Lets you designate which of the two Contacts is the one to be kept and which one is a duplicate.
• Done: exits the Merging process and no further action is applied.

5. Before completing the Mass Merge, it is advised to review all the fields and consider the below:

• Contacts are Merged from left to right. The contact on the left will be merged into the one on the right, resulting in only the right contact remaining. When Mass Merging, you will not be able to select the details you wish to retain, so please Mass Merge with caution.
• If any errors or “conflicts” are detected, the page will reload and the specific, individual conflicts will show for each line.

6. Select Batch Merge Selected Duplicates or Batch Merge All Duplicates to proceed with the Merge.