Merging duplicate givers

Occasionally, you may experience duplicated giver records. They can be identified using the Duplicated Givers report in the Giving module's Data Cleansing reports.

Additionally, when viewing a giver's profile page, you might also see an Information message alerting you to a potential duplicate giver, with the option to Merge (explained below) or Ignore (which will dismiss the message and prevent it from appearing again). You can Undo ignore from the Duplicated Givers report.

The giver Merge workflow can also be used to optionally merge any two givers, even if they are not duplicates:

Simply search and select the Giver to delete:

Merging duplicate givers

Selecting Merge from either the Duplicated Givers report or a giver profile (shown above) will open the Merge givers pop-up, showing the Giver to keep on the left - the giver you were viewing when selecting Merge - and the Giver to delete on the right - the duplicate. It's important to remember that during the merge process, information selected for retention (explained below) will be merged into the Giver to keep - the Giver to delete will be deleted. Whether the givers are In the Address Book or Not in the Address Book is also shown, which may inform your decision as to which giver to keep - you can Swap the two givers if you wish.

Working methodically down the pop-up, select which elements of giver data to merge and retain in the Giver to keep. The merge process will overwrite existing data for that giver. Note that a choice is only given for data that differs - data that is the same is shown but not editable. Where the Giver to keep is In the Address Book, their Address Book contact details will always be kept unchanged and are not shown. When you are happy with your selections, click Save to complete the merge process. This process is irreversible.

A merge record, and details of any changes made to the merged giver, are shown in the Changes log and a record of the deleted giver is added to the Deleted Givers report.

What data is merged?

For linked givers In the Address Book, no Address Book data is ever changed during the merge process. Beyond the selectable giver data shown in the Merge givers pop-up, the following additional giver data is also merged and retained:

• Giver tags
• All donations
• All pledges, including Stripe (card) and GoCardless (direct debit) pledges
• All declarations (UK only)
• Giver Notes - including any note visibility restrictions, i.e. notes restricted to "Just Me" or a particular User Group.
• Communication logs
• Giver linking:
  • where one giver is In the Address Book, and one is Not in the Address Book, you can choose whether the Giver to keep remains linked or is unlinked
  • where both givers are Not in the Address Book, the Giver to keep is unlinked
  • where both givers are In the Address Book but linked to different contact profiles. You can choose which profile the Giver to keep will be linked to after the merge.
• Multi-site - A giver can only be assigned to one site. Where the two givers belong to different sites, you must choose which site to assign the Giver to keep.