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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…