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8.14. Merging Two Records

Merging Records

Every now and then, you'll come across a duplicate record in your database and, as we all know, dealing with duplicates is unpleasant. First you have to laboriously copy data from the duplicate record to the desired record, and then carefully review all of your work to make sure everything is correct, and finally you have to delete the duplicate record.  Fortunately, Aristotle 360 makes it quick and far easier to combine data from two records into a single record, thus eliminating the duplicate.

All you need to do is take the following steps:

1. Search for the records to be merged. One of the easiest ways to do so would be to use the Quick Search on the left, and then click the option See full search results. This is the easiest way to target records to merge when you are already aware that duplicates exist, but really any search can be used, as long as your search results include two or more records that you would like to merge. So even if you are running a broader search, such as all committees records, then any of those results can be merged as well.
2. Once you are on the search results page, check off the records you want to merge using the boxes along the left side.
3. Click the Merge Selected Records option on the right side of the page. This will open a new window.
4. Select the Primary record (see below for more details), and then click Merge. Once you confirm the merge, the selected records will all be merged into the record that was set as the primary.

Primary Records

Often, you'll first notice a duplicate record while doing a Quick Search. You can also run the Query report Individual Duplicate Check periodically to locate duplicate records in your dataset. First determine which record is the Primary record (the one you want to keep) and which one is the duplicate. Even if both records have some information worth keeping, it's usually easy to determine which one you want to save.

Identifying a primary record is crucial because it is the basis for determining how the merge will proceed. No information in the Primary record will be overwritten. If the two records have different information in a given field (an address, for example) the merge will keep only the information in the Primary record. However, the merge will keep all receipts, disbursements, notes, etc. from both records, but move them to the Primary record. Pictures and marital status data are not merged.