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Author: Joel Kristenson

Overview

This article walks through the steps to mass merge duplicate contact records in your database.

This requires that you have appropriate security clearance, and that the records are identical (name/address) in order to merge.

There are some useful related resources at the bottom that cover the manual-merge process, and how to conform address records prior to running the mass merge utility for optimal success.

Tip: Open a new session of Trail Blazer before running these large procedures, if something goes awry you have a better chance of pinpointing, and rolling back the session.

Steps

Navigate to your contact (donor/voter) list, click [Search] in the upper-left, and select the load all radio button.

From the File drop-down menu at the top follow File > Utilities > Merge

(Must have required security clearance to run this process).

This will provide you a variety of options on how to run the merge.  You may need to make a few passes on your list of contacts using each of these methods one-at-a-time.

This is the description on how Trail Blazer runs a merge:

In addition to the conditions employed by the merge method selected below, a merge will take place only if

 - the state SOS registration number (if present in both records) matches.

 - the birth date (if present in both records) matches.

You can also navigate to the Options tab and choose which contact record is considered the ‘master’ record (the one that remains) by choosing to use either the lowest or highest contact ID.  (Image below)

This is the description on what these settings mean under the *Options* tab:

In a merge operation, the master record will be preserved, and the other record will be deleted after transferring information to the master.  In general, the master record takes precedence over the other record when information in the two records is different. 

The contact with the lowest ID is the record that has been in the database longer, while the one with the highest id is the one that has been added more recently.  By default, the one with the lowest ID will be used as the master because you have worked with that record longer.  In some cases, the more recent record may be more up-to-date -- in that case you would select the highest contact id option.

After selecting your preferences, click [OK].

This starts the process, if you’re working with a larger data set in the hundreds of thousands or millions, it may take a few hours to run.

Once complete it will provide you with the results.

Checkout the related resources below for how to conform/merge address records (which is very beneficial prior to running a contact merge) as well as other articles, and videos on the subject of managing your duplicate records in the database.

Related Resources

Article: Manually Merge of Contact Records

Article: Automatically Conform Addresses

Article: Auto-merging Duplicate Address Records

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