Duplicate Contacts
Information on duplicate Contacts in MinistryPlatform, including how it affects the quality of your data and how to fix the issue.
Duplicate Contacts are Contacts that have a Duplicate Of relationship. You'll want to keep these to a minimum.
Data Health Report Card
The Customer Portal Report Card will give an A grade when less than 2% of your active Contacts are flagged as duplicates. Contacts are considered active if they have activity in the Activity Log in the last 365 days.
Ways to Improve
To view all of your duplicate Contacts, go to and select the Duplicates view. Use the Combine Contacts Tool to combine duplicates into one Contact record. All duplicate contacts display in the drop-down list when you launch the tool without making a selection.
Best Practices to Prevent Bad Data
- ALWAYS search more than one way before you add people to your system.
- Ensure your church has a "minimum data required" practice. In other words, before you add someone to the system, you must have at least their first name, last name, and two other pieces of information (birth date, email, phone, address, and so on).
- Try to gather birth dates, as that data does not change, whereas someone's phone number or address might.