Merging Person Records

Sometimes you might find that a person in the system has duplicate records, sometimes three or four even. That's okay though, we have multiple ways to merge records.

CAUTION: There is no special button to untangle merged Person Records. Please use extra caution when merging. We can untangle merged records for you, however, in most cases, this takes a tremendous amount of time because we have to do it very carefully, especially if either one of the people had a donor profile attached to their record. Depending on how complicated the untangling is, we may charge you $150/hour.

The most common way this happens is when people have the same name, for example, a father and son with the same name.

Merging Records from the People Table (one at a time)

From the People Table:

1. Search for the duplicate records and select both records. Click the Other Actions button and select Merge.
   PRO TIP! The first person you select will show up on the "Delete" side in the next step.
   
2. See below screenshot for what to expect, and look out for, when merging
   (Right-click and "Open image in new tab" to enlarge) (Right-click and "Open image in new tab" to enlarge)
3. After merging, scroll to the bottom of the screen and select Delete Person on the Left.

Merging Records from People Utilities (bulk merge)

From the Dashboard:

1. Go to People > Other > People Utilities.
2. Click the Find Duplicate People button.
3. The list will show you every possible duplicate in BigSIS and all possible combinations of that duplicate. For example, there will be a row for both duplicates. To bulk merge, you only need to select one of the rows since the other is essentially the same thing in reverse. Select the records you want to merge and click the Bulk Merge button.
   
   • Note: In the likely event you will see two records you know aren't duplicates, you can select those records and click the Mark as Not Dup button so they stop showing on the list. TIP: For father and son, but Sr. and Jr. after the last name to easily tell the difference.
4. When you're all finished, the records will be merged and no longer show up as duplicates!

(Right-click and "Open image in new tab" to enlarge)