Keeping up with duplicates and merging them helps your reporting be more concise and gives you a better idea of the number of people actually connecting with your church.

How are duplicate profiles created?

Duplicate profiles occur when:

• A person gives online as a guest and does not enter consistent contact data when adding the donation.

• A person adding children and/or family members to a check-in kiosk does not use name lookup first.

• A person is marked inactive, then added to a group, checks in, or gives.

• Staff members add people without looking them up first.

• Staff members add people to personnel or profiles.

• Someone registers as a named guest, and the staff converts all guests into profiles.

We search your data nightly looking for possible duplicate profiles. The search compares contact data such as name, email, phone, address, and DOB to determine possible duplicates, and a message displays on these profiles.

When you import profiles from other programs or spreadsheets, we search those for duplicates. We compare the information in your profiles and determine the probability that two are duplicates based on the amount of matching data in them.

How do you find duplicate profiles?

We search your data nightly looking for possible duplicate profiles. The search compares contact data such as name, email, phone, address, and date of birth to determine possible duplicates, and a message displays on these profiles.

When you import profiles from other programs or spreadsheets, we search those for duplicates. We compare the information in your profiles and determine the probability that two are duplicates based on the amount of matching data in them.

You can see a list of possible duplicate profiles on the Overview dashboard. Also, there is a button on the Info tab of each duplicate profile.

You may see duplicates when searching for people.

How do I resolve duplicate profiles?

When you see duplicates, you can merge, delete, or ignore them.

For example, profiles may be flagged as a duplicate if they have the same first and last name, but one has a middle initial and the other one doesn't. If these are indeed two different individuals, you can ignore the duplicate.

If they are truly duplicates, you can merge the profiles.

While we work behind the scenes to find duplicates, there's always a possibility that you may find a duplicate record in the search option, overview dashboard, or person's profile before we do. If so, it's okay to resolve this duplicate when you find it.

When should I resolve duplicates?

It's best to have a regular routine to check for duplicate profiles. Perhaps the most important time to check is just before sending out contributions statements or just after a large event.