Duplicate contacts in PolicyCenter

If the contact management system find duplicate contacts, the contact management system sends a message to the other applications. PolicyCenter merges the duplicates into a single contact.

This topic describes the default integration between PolicyCenter and ContactManager or another contact management system.

When PolicyCenter merges contacts, it identifies one of the contacts as the surviving contact and the other as the merged contact. PolicyCenter might have both contacts, or only the surviving or merged contact in its internal database. After merging, PolicyCenter deletes the merged contact, if any.

PolicyCenter merges two contacts in the following ways:

If contact information differs between duplicate contacts, the contact management system determines which is the surviving contact. The contact management system also controls which information, if any, to copy from the merged contact. The contact management system sends the new contact information to PolicyCenter.
If both contacts exist on the same account and have overlapping account contact roles, PolicyCenter resolves information specific to the account contact role in favor of the surviving contact.
If both contacts exist on the same policy, in the same role, PolicyCenter resolves role specific information in favor of the surviving contact.
The contact management system merges all addresses on the duplicate contacts. The surviving contact contains these addresses.
Addresses must be merged to the surviving contact. This merging can be done through an API or in the PolicyCenter user interface.

To merge contacts, use the ContactAPI methods mergeContactAddressesByPublicId and mergeContactsByPublicId.