Ghost records in Raiser's Edge

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do


I just ran a csv export with the Mass Merge plugin for a large group of duplicates it found. I didn't merge any of them because I have never seen these records before. When I tried to search for the constituents using their name or ID, Raiser's Edge didn't find anything. So I used the export from the plugin to create a query with the Constituent IDs in import. From that query, I can open the records. They are mostly records with names and no other information. Has anyone else experienced this? What are these empty ghost records doing in the database and is it safe to delete them???

Stephanie Ulmer

I found something similar and I was able to determine that they were created records when matching gifts were entered for organizations that did not have a RE record. The "organization matches gifts" box was checked on a business relationship on a constituent record. When adding gifts through the batch process, it automatically added a matching gift onto the record, but again, the matching gift organization did not have a record, just that box was checked.


We went through and evaluated each of them, nearly all of them written off and then the "ghost" record was removed as well.


Hope this helps or gives you another place to look.


Steph

Amy Dana

Sunshine Watson:

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do


I just ran a csv export with the Mass Merge plugin for a large group of duplicates it found. I didn't merge any of them because I have never seen these records before. When I tried to search for the constituents using their name or ID, Raiser's Edge didn't find anything. So I used the export from the plugin to create a query with the Constituent IDs in import. From that query, I can open the records. They are mostly records with names and no other information. Has anyone else experienced this? What are these empty ghost records doing in the database and is it safe to delete them???

Could there be some kind of space at the beginning of their number, so that the ID is actually " 123" instead of "123"? I've had some issues like that before.


But if they're really just random record with no info, I'd delete them. Do you have legit record with the same name? Maybe there was an issue with uploading so these records were abandoned before they were completed.


Or maybe you should just call the Ghostbusters.;)

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Sunshine Watson:

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do


I just ran a csv export with the Mass Merge plugin for a large group of duplicates it found. I didn't merge any of them because I have never seen these records before. When I tried to search for the constituents using their name or ID, Raiser's Edge didn't find anything. So I used the export from the plugin to create a query with the Constituent IDs in import. From that query, I can open the records. They are mostly records with names and no other information. Has anyone else experienced this? What are these empty ghost records doing in the database and is it safe to delete them???

They were all created on the same date (on a dark, stormy night) twelve years ago, so I ran a query for records created on that date and found 1,615. They are all individual records with names, gender, and nothing else. It looks like many of them have a duplicate which is searchable in the database. So strange!!!

Jen Claudy

Sounds like you need the Sherlock Holmes of RE...

Amy Dana

Jen Claudy:

Sounds like you need the Sherlock Holmes of RE...

We have a bbcon2017 topic!

Zane Magnuson 2

The first place to start would be finding out what happened in the organization 12 years ago. They may be some kind of weird legacy records from a database migration that have been grandfathered into the current database. For example, if you decide that "Addressee" should be a required field, you can still have records without an addressee that are older than the change.


I'm definitely subscribing to this one because I'm curious about how this turns out. Keep us posted!

Isaac Comer

Sunshine Watson:

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do


I just ran a csv export with the Mass Merge plugin for a large group of duplicates it found. I didn't merge any of them because I have never seen these records before. When I tried to search for the constituents using their name or ID, Raiser's Edge didn't find anything. So I used the export from the plugin to create a query with the Constituent IDs in import. From that query, I can open the records. They are mostly records with names and no other information. Has anyone else experienced this? What are these empty ghost records doing in the database and is it safe to delete them???

That you are able to open them from the query, but not in any other way suggests that something on the record is invalid.  For example, perhaps the "IS_CONSTITUENT" flag is not set or perhaps some sort of required field like Constituent ID is null when it shouldn't be.

How they got created:  hard to say exactly-- except that it was definitely some sort of "bulk" process or badly flawed import or something.


If it were me, I would probably delete them, although I'd be compelled to find out everything I could about why they were there, and what on the record is invalid first though.  However, it can be difficult to do that without access to the back-end database.  And that's kind of delving pretty deep.

Kimberley Cote

Wow, how bizarre. I'm curious of the outcome of this! So weird that you can access one way and not another ... have you asked BB Support?

Amy Levitre

Not sure if this explains it or not but I have noticed that when I am in batch mode entering gifts into RE and the person is not in the database and I select Add New and accidently hit Organization instead of Individual, it will automatically create an organization record for that person without any other information and go back into the batch like nothing happened.  The person who was my backup did not know this and she would accidently create the organization but then go back in and create the individual record without even knowing that the organization record was created.  I only found out because of my monthly audit queries.  

Sunshine Watson:

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do


I just ran a csv export with the Mass Merge plugin for a large group of duplicates it found. I didn't merge any of them because I have never seen these records before. When I tried to search for the constituents using their name or ID, Raiser's Edge didn't find anything. So I used the export from the plugin to create a query with the Constituent IDs in import. From that query, I can open the records. They are mostly records with names and no other information. Has anyone else experienced this? What are these empty ghost records doing in the database and is it safe to delete them???