What is the best way to combate duplicate constituent records?
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Hi All:
This is my second post in as many days as I've just discovered this new resource. I'm basically a self-taught RE7 user and have been finding work-arounds to get to the data that I need. However, I am facing a situation that I just can't seem to get a handle on. Duplicate constituent records. Every time a gift comes in through our batch, I can choose to link it with an existing constituent record. I always choose to do this (provided I am 100% certain it's the same individuals), however, I still end up with dups. I go back and merge the records, but it's very frustrating to do so after I have chosen to link them. Also, when a donor makes their gift online and they use a different name, etc. (Meg short for Megan, for example), I'm still faced with the same dilemma of ending up with a duplicate record, even though I am linking them. Any idea why this is still happening? Any insight any of you superstar RE users can give me would be so appreciated.
Thank you!
Alison
This is my second post in as many days as I've just discovered this new resource. I'm basically a self-taught RE7 user and have been finding work-arounds to get to the data that I need. However, I am facing a situation that I just can't seem to get a handle on. Duplicate constituent records. Every time a gift comes in through our batch, I can choose to link it with an existing constituent record. I always choose to do this (provided I am 100% certain it's the same individuals), however, I still end up with dups. I go back and merge the records, but it's very frustrating to do so after I have chosen to link them. Also, when a donor makes their gift online and they use a different name, etc. (Meg short for Megan, for example), I'm still faced with the same dilemma of ending up with a duplicate record, even though I am linking them. Any idea why this is still happening? Any insight any of you superstar RE users can give me would be so appreciated.
Thank you!
Alison
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Unfortunately, this is just something that will happen and you'll need to stay on top of!
There are two tools within RE that may help: under Admin you've got Duplicate Constituent Management, and under Plug-Ins, there's an optional Mass Merge Plug-in. The Mass Merge Plug-in requires a subscription, so you might not have it.
The Duplicate Constituent Management Tool is my preferred option because of its fuzzy matching, but it doesn't find everything. The Mass Merge Plug-In uses queries to find similar records, so you could also set up a few common ones for yourself.
But, basically, you'll just need to run your preferred tool on a regular basis to catch everyone. Weekly or monthly. Don't let it go 15 years like we did, because I've been working on it steadily since July 2017 with no end in sight
It's also pretty common to set up a query to review daily of records added in the last day, with some of the common fields in your data standards/cleanup set as the output for review. This will help catch lapses in data entry that may prevent a duplicate record ID.5
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