Merging duplicate community records

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: Jun 23, 2020 by Richard Kennedy (Unlicensed)

Each time you create a new community member, Synergetic searches the database for any possible matches. This is to reduce the chance of duplication of information. However, the user can still force Synergetic to create another person and possibly create a duplicate record. The Community De-Duplicator program is a system maintenance tool that allows you to merge duplicate records together into one main record.


How does it work?

The de-duplicator searches the community database according to specific criteria that you set and finds any matches that could possibly be duplicates. From this list of matches you can then select to merge two duplicate records.

Important Note: This program is very powerful and rights to it should be very restricted. This is because you are essentially editing people's records and associated Synergetic tables. Be careful!

The community de-duplicator program does not merge community and address details together, only related tables.
It also verifies and stops if any of the following conditions are met:

  • To ID is not on the community.
  • From ID is not on the community.
  • Both IDs are in the same constituency. If this happens, either:
  • remove one of the IDs from the area of Synergetic which generated the constituency, if it is a system-defined constituency (that is, starting with @)
  • delete the constituency from the record that you believe is wrong or outdated and manually merge any useful information into the To record.
  • From ID has finance constituencies. Merging is not supported for records that are part of any financial constituencies.
  • From ID is a student. This is because students have finance links and merging is not supported.
  • From ID is a debtor for a student. In this case, manually set the debtor for this student to another debtor.
  • Both IDs are in the same table/column. Merging is not supported in this instance.

You cannot merge from finance related records, so if one is a donor and another is a parent, merge from the donor record into the parent. Also, make sure you do not merge one person with a spouse into the opposite record's spouse.

To de-duplicate finance constituencies:

  • go into the appropriate program, for example Debtor Maintenance for @DEB constituency
  • either:
  • select File > Rename
  • right click on the selector grid and select Rename.


Example
Mr J (10) & Mrs S (11) Smith (SP, PC)
Mr J (20) & Mrs S (21) Smith (ZDN)
In this case merge 20 into 10 and then 21 into 11, do not merge 20 into 10 and 11 into 21 - it is backwards! Always remember to take the spouses into account.
You must then launch into the two records and make manual amendments to the To ID to make sure that all the information in the From ID is preserved - also do not forget the spouse!
Once you are happy all details in the From have been preserved, you can right click again and delete the From person. This also deletes the spouse if they have one.


Merging two records

  1. Select Module > System > System De-Duplicator from the main menu.
    The following window is displayed.
  2. Click OK.
    The Synergetic Community De-Duplicator window is displayed.
  3. In the Search for duplicates with matching area, select the criteria you want to search on.
  4. Click Find.
    Any possible duplicate community records based on your search criteria are displayed.
  5. Find the two people you want to merge.
  6. Highlight the person you want to merge from.
    Their ID is placed in the From field.
  7. Place your cursor over the record you want to merge into.
    Note: Communications linked to both community members are maintained and attached to the record being merged into.
  8. Right click.
  9. Select Merge [From ID] into [To ID] from the pop up menu.
    The Community DeDuplicator - Copy Data Across window is displayed.
  10. Select which fields you want to copy across from the old record to the new record.
  11. Click OK.
    The two records are merged.
  12. Synergetic asks you if you want to print a log of all changes that you made during that session. This log is a handy reference for you to later inform various departments of your organisation if a community member that belongs to their side of the system has had their ID or details changed.
    For example, the payroll department should be informed if an employee's details have been merged into another record.
     

Note: When you merge records, the From record is not deleted. You have to delete it after the merge.
Also, Community Maintenance has a merge function that works similarly. Right click in the selector grid and select Merge.