CRM · Daily operations · 8 min read

Review duplicates and merge records

Resolve possible duplicates found on save, and merge two deals into one without losing history.

Before you begin

The Duplicate review feature must be on. To merge, you must be allowed to change both records (owner, team manager or administrator), and both must be open and not archived.

Review a candidate

When you save a deal, the system compares e-mail, phone and external id with other leads and with customers. Matches are listed for a person to decide. Nothing is merged automatically.

1. Open CRM > Leads > Duplicate review. The Open tab lists each candidate with the Lead, the Match (email, phone or external_id), the Matches and the Detail.
2. Open the candidate to compare the two sides.
3. Choose one of two actions:
   • Link to customer, when the match is an existing customer. The lead is linked to that customer and no new contact is made. Other open customer candidates of the same lead are dismissed with the note 'Linked to another customer'.
   • Not the same. The system asks why. Give a short reason such as Different branches.

A dismissed candidate keeps your reason, your name and the time, and an event is written on the lead. Only a customer match can be linked. If the match is another lead, merge from the lead itself.

If the other side belongs to a team you cannot see, it reads "Another team's record". The number and title are not shown.

Merge two records

1. Open the record you want to keep (the survivor).
2. Open Timeline & consent, find the Merge panel and type the reference of the other record, for example CRM-000012.
3. Press Compare. Only fields that differ are listed.
4. For each differing field choose Keep this record's or Keep the other.
5. If the two records name different customers, choose which customer the merged record keeps.
6. Enter a reason and press Merge.

What happens next

• The survivor takes the fields you chose.
• Activities, products, competitors, buying roles, quotations, campaign responses and duplicate reviews move to the survivor. A competitor on both stays once.
• The other record becomes status Merged, is archived and points at the survivor. Both records get a merge event. The choices, before-images and counts of moved items are stored.
• Nothing is deleted.

Good to know

• 'Choose another record to merge into this one.' means you typed the same reference.
• 'CRM-000012 changed since you opened it. Reload both and merge again.' means someone edited a record after you loaded it. Neither record changed. Reload and repeat.
• 'The two records name different customers; choose which one the merged record keeps.' means you must make that choice first.
• There is no unmerge. Compare carefully before you merge.
• A record that took part in a merge cannot be deleted. Archive it instead.