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Author: Joel Kristenson
Last Updated: 5/1/2014
Overview
This KB walks through the steps to delete contact (voter/donor/other) records one at a time and a list of records.
Outline
#1 Delete a Single Contact Record
#2 Delete a List of Contact Records
#3 Related Resources
Tip: It’s pretty rare that we recommend deleting records. The majority of the time you’ll either merge duplicates together or “hide” records using the Not Attribute.
IMPORTANT! The system will prevent you from deleting a contact record if a contribution, pledge, or Logon Session is present. You’ll first need to delete the contribution and then delete the record. Do this only with a high degree of discretion - if something goes wrong you may be able to rollback the session.
#1 Delete a Single Contact Record
Open up the record you want to delete from your contact list. In this example I used a sample donor database and opened David Jones’ record.
From within the record click the Red [X] at the top.
Trail Blazer will prompt you with a warning. Click [OK] to proceed.
It may take a minute or two for the system to finish processing. Once complete you’ll be taken back to your contact list and notice that the record has been purged.
The next section covers deleting a list of contact records at once. The same rules apply where any pledge or contribution that’re present will prevent you from deleting those records.
#2 Delete a List of Contact Records
Query for the list of records you want to delete. In my example I pulled up a list of records that had an attributed called Junk Records – Delete Later giving me a count of 16 people.
Click [File] > Utilities > Delete Selected Records…
You’ll be prompted with a warning displaying how many records are about to be deleted. Click [OK] to proceed (with caution).
Trail Blazer will display the progress status and a confirmation with the results. In my example 15 records were deleted because 1 was a past database user which cannot purge if audit trail is present.
Click [OK].
Click [Search] to refresh the list.
Some of the resources below are useful for managing duplicate records, and how to utilize the NOT attribute to archive a record vs. deleting the record.
#3 Related Resources
Article: How to Use the NOT Attribute and Query for Records Tagged with It
Article: Delete an Invoice/Payment
Article: Rollback – Undo Function
Video: How to Manage Duplicates
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