Removing Duplicate Contacts from exports

James Redding · May 2016

I've recently produced a maliing to both organsiation and individuals which has resulted in some people getting two communciation one via their indvidiaul reocrd and the organsiation record they are a contact for. How do other stop this from happening

Michael Sherman 2 · May 2016

Hi James,

You can do this in Mail but not in Export. I know this has been requested for years.

In Mail:

>6; Org. Address/Contact Information

> "If a contact also receives this mailing as an individual: a) Mail to individual address only; b) Mail to contact address only; c) Mail to both addresses separately

Gina Gerhard · May 2016

You may want to check out this thread: https://community.blackbaud.com/forums/viewtopic/158/15807

Lauren Schler CFRE bCREPro · May 2016

I created a Contact Attribute called “Mail Code” with table entries
for all of the mailing types we do (Newsletter, Event Invitation,
Solicitations, Thank you letters). I then applied the Mail Code
attribute to the Organization Contact records that I knew should
receive a particular type of mailing. For example, an Org contact
may get Event Invitations at work, but request to Newsletters at
home. Thus, he would only have the Mail Code attribute of Event
Invitations on his Organization Contact record. When I pulled
lists, I included Organization contacts with the Contact attribute
type that I wanted. It takes some work to set up but it will
address this problem very well.

Best,

Lauren

J Baumann · May 2016

Easy answer - Use the Mail feature. Unless a person has two constituent records, the Mail feature "processes" your list. Mail also automatically eliminates addresses that have the Send Mail box unchecked; Export doesn't. Export simply dumps data out of the system.

Even if you want to have more data come of out RE than what Mail allows, you can still get to your final list of constituents to be inlcuded by using Mail.

1. Use Quick Letters to create a throwaway file BUT create an Output Query - that is the real, final list of who you want it to go to. Then use this Output Query in Export.

2. Or let Mail actually produce your mailing file. Use Export for any additional fields you want to attach to the records - include Constituent ID in both. Then match them up in Excel and combine the two.

Removing Duplicate Contacts from exports

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