📌 Note: Memberships are available as add-ons. For more information on adding new features please see the add-ons page in your nation.
Table of Contents
Potential matches
NationBuilder will suggest profiles that may be duplicates once a day. You can start reviewing potential matches from People > More > Potential duplicates.
Once you click on Potential duplicates, you'll be taken to a screen to review them:
Click the button Start reviewing potential matches. If there is more than one potential match, they will be displayed in a randomized order.
There are 3 options with potential matches:
1. Click the Yes, this is the same person button to merge the profiles. If the profiles contain different information in the same field, you'll be asked to resolve the conflict.
2. Click No, this is not the same person button and the profiles will be removed from the automated matching process.
3. Click Skip if you are not sure whether the profiles are duplicates. The profiles will return to the group of potential matches.
Remember a single profile can only have one Twitter account and one Facebook account. If a person has two Twitter accounts, they must be maintained in separate profiles.
When potential matches are suggested
Automated suggestions are created in the following scenarios:
Two profiles have the same name: One has an email address and the other profile does not.
Two profiles have the same name: One has a Facebook account while the other profile does not.
Two profiles have the same name: One has a Twitter account and the other does not.
Two profiles have the same name: One has a Facebook account and the other has a Twitter account.
Two profiles have the same name: One has one of the following voter IDs: PF Strat ID, State file ID, County file ID, VAN ID, NBEC GUID.
Two profiles have the same name and different email addresses: A single profile can have up to four email addresses.
If there is a discrepancy between fields on suggested merges, you can pick your preferred option in the "resolve conflict" menu. This menu is only available when a conflict exists, and conflicting information is permanently and irrevocably deleted after the conflict is resolved.
📌 Note: The profile where the automated suggestion merging occurs is considered the primary profile. The information in a primary profile is assumed to be more accurate than the information in the secondary profile. Some data from the secondary profile may be lost when the profiles are merged.
A person cannot be merged with an organization. If the profiles represent the same entity, edit the profiles so that they are the same type of record.
Manual merge
If you know that two profiles represent the same person or organization, you can manually merge them.
Decide which profile has the most correct information (up-to-date addresses, phone numbers, etc.). This more accurate profile is the primary profile. You'll want to merge the secondary profile into this primary profile.
Go to the secondary profile and view Merge duplicates > Manual merge.
Click on the dropdown menu below the statement "Is this a duplicate? Find the person to merge into."
This dropdown menu includes all profiles in your nation. Find the correct primary profile by typing in:
Full name
Email address
Twitter handle, beginning with "@"
When the correct primary profile is displayed, press enter. Then, click on the Merge records button.
When manually merging profiles, the profile you want to keep is not the profile where you perform the merge.
Primary vs. secondary profile
When merging profiles, if data exists in both, the information in the primary profile is retained and the data from the secondary profile is deleted. The primary profile is the profile that continues to exist when the merge completes. When reviewing potential matches, the primary profile is the profile you are viewing. When creating a manual merge, the merge happens in the Merge duplicates section of the secondary profile. In a manual merge, the primary profile is the profile being merged into the profile selected from the dropdown menu.
Details on the merge process:
The primary profile ID will be the NationBuilder ID once the merge completes.
The secondary profile ID will never be used again in your database.
When completing a potential match, i.e. automated suggestion, conflicts in the following fields are resolved by the control panel user approving a potential match NameTwitterFacebookEmail if the combined profile would contain more than four total addressesPhone numberMobile phone numberWork phone numberRecruiterNBEC GUID (a unique ID connected to a profile imported from the NationBuilder Election Center)
When completing a potential match, all other fields retain data from the primary profile. This includes vote history. If data does not exist in the primary profile, data from the secondary profile is retained.
Once a secondary profile is merged into a primary profile, conflicting information that existed in the secondary profile is permanently and irrevocably deleted.
If you merge profiles that both contain membership information, the following will occur:If both profiles have the same membership, the membership with the latest expiration date will be used.If one profile has a membership and the other doesn't, the membership will be added.If a profile has donations attached to a membership, all donations will be kept and associated with whichever membership still exists.
Most recent consent given to a Consent Subject (for all Consents defined in the Nation) for both of the original profiles is respected as "current" for the merged profile.
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