Duplicates and merging records

When the same person is entered twice, their history gets split: attendance on one record, follow-ups on the other. Inperia tries to prevent this when you add someone and, if it happens anyway, lets you join the two records.

The possible duplicates warning

While you fill in a new record, Inperia looks for people who have already been entered and shows Potential duplicates found when someone matches by:

• email,
• phone,
• document, or
• name and date of birth.

From the warning you can view the existing record, convert a contact into a member if the match is a contact, or Create anyway if it’s a different person. If the match is an archived record, you can Restore and edit it instead of creating another one.

Which details can’t be repeated

The email, when the record has one, and the document (same type and number) can’t be repeated within the church: if they match, the record isn’t saved. The phone and the name only trigger the warning, because two people can share them.

Merge two records

If the same person was entered twice, Merge records combines both records into one:

1. Open one of the two records and select Merge. You can also select both in the list and use Merge in the action bar.

2. If you started from a record, search by name for The other record.

3. Under Which one stays?, choose the record to keep. The one that stays keeps its place in the church (rung, leader, status and roles) and takes in what the other one had.

4. Under Details that differ, choose which value stays for each detail that doesn’t match. If you don’t choose, the value from the record you keep stays.

5. Review What happens to the rest and select Merge. In Merge the records?, type the name on the record that stays, confirm your identity and select Merge.

When you merge:

• The other record’s attendance, follow-ups, family ties, tags, roles and cell groups move to the one that stays. If both had an attendance mark for the same meeting, it stays as “present” if either one says so.
• The people in the other record’s care now report to the one that stays.
• If the one that stays has no email, it takes the other record’s, along with its pending invitation. It doesn’t if it holds a role with more access than yours: then it stays without an email and the other record’s invitation is cancelled.
• The other record’s passed courses and its places in Courses groups move to the one that stays.
• The other record is archived, emptied of personal data, and its history shows on the one that stays.

Two cases in Courses stop a merge, and the panel says which one: both records have a place in different groups of the same course (withdraw one of them first), or one of them teaches in an open group where the other is a student.

It can’t be undone

A merge is final. Check carefully which of the two records stays before you confirm.

Who can merge

To merge, you need the Merge records of the same person permission with scope over All members in the church. With the roles Inperia comes with, in practice the owner does it. You can’t merge from a support session.