Finding duplicate constituents based on address

Melissa Sheinman

Does anyone have a good way to find duplicates based on address? We have MergeOmatic but are wondering if there is another option. Thanks!

Dana Burton

Happy Friday @Melissa Sheinman! Since my beginning of RE last year, I've used NXT for this. If you navigate to Tools, then click on Data health in the drop down, it will load a page (or multiple pages) with potential duplicate based on address, phone, email.

At the bottom left, it will show how many possible duplicates. Click on your number to load the potential results. You will be able to view each potential duplicate record (click the 3 dots beside the record) and compare them to see if they are indeed the same or different.

You can then Select data to merge if they are the same constituent or These records are not duplicates will remove them from this list if they are indeed separate accounts. Hope this helps and have a very blessed weekend!

Melissa Sheinman

@Dana Burton Thank you! I should have clarified but we are still using the desktop version of RE. Do you know if there is an equivalent feature in the older version?

Daniel R. Snyder

@Melissa Sheinman If you export the preferred address to CSV/Excel for each constituent you can use the Conditional Formatting button to highlight duplicates, then you can sort the column first by color (duplicates at top) and sort that same column alphabetically so you have the duplicates together.

Melissa Sheinman

@Dan Snyder Thank you!

Karen Diener 2

@Melissa Sheinman what version of RE are you on? You used to be able to change the criteria that was used to find duplicates, but I don't remember the version where it changed. It was probably 10 years ago or so? I would poke around in Admin and Config to see what you can find!

Karen

Pamela Hall 2

@Melissa Sheinman There is a Duplicate Constituent Management Tool in Admin in the Database that lists all the duplicates. You can see all the information for them.

Melissa Sheinman

@Karen Diener We have the latest version of the desktop program. I'll take a look for this. Thank you!

Melissa Sheinman

@Pamela Hall Thank you! I'm running this now to see what we come out with…I'm a little nervous for the results ?

Gwen CapersSingleton

@Dana Burton
This question really is for those of you with a number of deceased records in your database, especially hospice organizations for which deceased patient records are actively managed as part of tributes and other survivor cultivation activities, are you finding the NXT Duplicate Report hard to use, as the algorithm focuses on name elements, thereby providing a number of so-called duplicates. However, while patients may have similar names, their deceased dates differ indicating that the record is not a duplicate. To avoid inclusion in mailings, etcetera our practice is to show the last address of a deceased patient as a “Previous Address”, such that the primary address line is blank.

In addition, the NXT Duplicate Report is inflated for these so-called duplicates and does not allow for the generation of a list or query so that one could sort out said records, using other fields like deceased or deceased date. What are your workarounds?

JoAnn Strommen

@Gwen CapersSingleton in dealing with deceased as duplicates, personally I'm not a fan of blank current address and marking last known as previous address. I undid that on a lot of records when I came to this org. Marking record as ‘not duplicate’ should take care of most issues - it's a one time thing for each pair of proposed duplicates.

If you set your business rules in db view when someone dies to uncheck the ‘send mail to this address’ box, that with a combination of not including deceased records in your pulls should be enough to prevent mailing to deceased constituents, IMO.

Faith Murray

@Gwen CapersSingleton, seconding @JoAnn Strommen's advice - we don't blank the primary address for deceased people either. It's enough to make sure the “Include deceased” button is UNchecked on all mailing lists and exports.

Karen Diener 2

@JoAnn Strommen:

@Gwen CapersSingleton in dealing with deceased as duplicates, personally I'm not a fan of blank current address and marking last known as previous address. I undid that on a lot of records when I came to this org. Marking record as ‘not duplicate’ should take care of most issues - it's a one time thing for each pair of proposed duplicates.

If you set your business rules in db view when someone dies to uncheck the ‘send mail to this address’ box, that with a combination of not including deceased records in your pulls should be enough to prevent mailing to deceased constituents, IMO.

1000% agree with every point @JoAnn Strommen has made here. Keep things simple and let the database work for you. In this case, it will.

Karen

Dariel Dixon 2

@Gwen CapersSingleton, seconding @JoAnn Strommen's advice - we don't blank the primary address for deceased people either. It's enough to make sure the “Include deceased” button is UNchecked on all mailing lists and exports.

@Faith Murray: I think in @Gwen CapersSingleton's case, because she works for a hospice, she may be pulling deceased constituents in her mailings to output some of the tribute information. I don't know if that would work necessarily in these types of cases.