Merge duplicate contacts

Before you begin

Merging duplicate contacts requires that Duplicate Contacts Finder batch processing has run. See:

After Duplicate Contacts Finder batch processing has run, you can see any potential duplicate contacts that this process found by clicking Merge Contacts on the Contacts tab.

Procedure

  1. Log in as a user with the Contact Manager role.
    For example, log in with username su and password gw.

    The Contact Manager role includes the permission to view the merge screen, abviewmerge. To merge contacts, there are additional permissions to edit and delete contacts that are also part of the Contact Manager role, such as abedit, abdelete, and anytagedit.

  2. Click the Contacts tab.
  3. In the Sidebar, click Merge Contacts.
  4. In the Merge Contacts screen, you see all the duplicate contacts detected by the last run of Duplicate Contacts Finder batch processing. The duplicates are grouped into pairs. You typically click Review to resolve one pair at a time, but you can mark multiple contact pairs in this screen and click Ignore for all of them.
    • You can select the check box next to one or more pairs that you determine are not duplicates and click Ignore to ignore all the checked pairs. Clicking Ignore saves both contacts in each pair and then removes each duplicate contact entry. These duplicate entries will not show up in future runs of the batch process unless a future edit makes them duplicates again.
    • You can search for specific duplicate contacts. If you do a search, you can use the Match Type list to filter the results by exact match, potential match, or all matches.
    • You might search for a specific contact’s duplicates on this screen and then want to see all the duplicates again. To do so, click Reset and then click Search.
  5. If you do not see any potential duplicate contacts listed, it is possible that Duplicate Contacts Finder has not run. It could also have run more than once since the last time you viewed the list.
    • If you clear the Last Run Only check box, you can see all duplicates that remain from any run of Duplicate Contacts Finder.
    • If that does not work, you need to run Duplicate Contacts Finder batch processing.
  6. For any pair of contacts, if you click the Review button, you can compare the two contacts on the Review Contacts for Merging screen.

    The Review Contacts for Merging screen has four actions you can perform on the two contacts you are comparing:

    • Merge – The contacts are duplicates. After you have completed all the comparisons on all tabs and the data is correct for both versions of the contact, click Merge to save the data in one contact. Clicking Merge removes the contact that is a duplicate and this duplicate contact entry. This duplicate entry will not show up in future runs of the batch process.
    • Merge Then Edit – The same as Merge, except that the merged contact opens in an editor after ContactManager completes the merge.
    • Ignore – The contacts are not duplicates. Clicking Ignore saves both contacts and removes this duplicate contact entry. This particular duplicate entry will not show up in future runs of the batch process unless a future edit makes them duplicates again.
    • Cancel – You do not want to decide if these two contacts are or are not duplicates. Clicking Cancel preserves this duplicate contact entry for this run of the batch process. However, the next run of the batch process will not pick up these duplicates. To see them in the Merge Contacts screens after any subsequent run of the batch process, you clear the Last Run Only check box, as described previously in step 5.
  7. On the Review Contacts for Merging screen, there are multiple tabs. Complete your work on all tabs before clicking Merge or Merge Then Edit at the top of the screen.
    • Initially you see the Contact Detail tab with four columns. The columns show the field names, the data for the contact to be kept, the data for the contact to be retired, and the data resulting from the merge.
    • The Addresses tab enables you to choose replacement addresses and to choose more than one address for the merged contact. You can also change the primary address and set the address type for each address. Check Include for any address that you want to keep that is not the primary address. If you do not include an address, you must indicate which address duplicates it in the address’s Duplicate Address list. You can choose None from this list if the address is not duplicated by another address.
    • The Documents tab enables you to choose which documents to keep. Set Include for documents you want to be attached to the merged contact. Clear Include for documents you want to remove from the merged contact.
    • The Related Contacts tab enables you to choose which related contacts to keep.
    • The EFT Information tab enables you to choose which electronic funds transfer accounts to keep.
    • The Vendor Data tab is visible if one of the contacts has a vendor tag. This tab enables you to determine which tags, availability settings, and services to keep.
  8. When the Updated Contact column has all the correct data, you can click Merge or Merge Then Edit.
    • Merge – Save the contact with the information you have chosen and exit the merge screens for this contact. ContactManager saves the Kept contact and retires the Retired contact. ContactManager then notifies all integrated core applications that the contact has changed. On receiving this notification, the core applications can change references to the retired contact and make them references to the kept contact. See Merging contacts and notifying core applications.
    • Merge Then Edit – Save the contact with the information you have chosen, and then open the Kept contact in the editor. ContactManager first saves the Kept contact and retires the Retired contact. When the editor opens, you see the newly merged data for the Kept contact in the editor. You can make further changes and save your changes.

    ContactManager notifies all integrated core applications that the contact has changed. On receiving this notification, the core applications can change references to the retired contact and make them references to the kept contact. See Merging contacts and notifying core applications.