What can I do if I have two contacts which represent the same person/business?
Background: ContactsLaw includes many features to avoid the duplication of contacts, however there are still some scenarios where duplication could occur:
- A user disregards an existing contact when creating a new one
- At the point of creation, it is not clear whether a new contact is the same as an existing one
- Two contacts later become equivalent (e.g. through a merger, etc)
By and large, you are encouraged to delete duplicate contacts, however this is not always possible. Once contacts have been used (for example, in journals, documents, transactions, etc), they cannot be removed from the system. To address this issue, ContactsLaw offers the merge feature.
To merge two contacts:
Open the summary page for the contact you no longer wish to retain. (If neither represents a complete record, choose the contact with the least detail.)
Click the Delete button. You will be shown a list of records which reference the contact.
Click the Merge button.
Select the contact to which all the listed records will be assigned (in place of the current contact).
The contact you initially opened will be deleted and the other contact will be updated accordingly.
Note: You will lose any CRM information, addresses, communications, notes and stored financial details when the duplicate contact is removed.
Merging client contacts
You can merge a non-client contact with a client (effectively deleting the non-client contact), but you cannot merge a client with any other contact until you have re-assigned all files (active and archived) to another client. This restriction is imposed to protect file numbers and ensure that existing file information is not overwritten during the merge.
Duplicate detection
The duplicates report on the CRM tab groups contacts by name, allowing you to identify potential duplicates.
Additionally, contacts created via bulk import or through some plug-ins have the ability to identify potential duplicates. In such cases, you will automatically receive tasks to resolve the duplication.
Duplicate resolution
Potential duplicates identified above can be resolved using the duplicate contact resolution activity. This activity allows you to interactively compare the contacts, identify which ones are genuine duplicates and also which contact you wish to retain.
The activity can be started manually from the search or via the duplicates report. It is useful when dealing with multiple duplicates or when further inspection is required.