What is a duplicate?
When Donorfy detects that a constituent has very similar details to another constituent, Donorfy will raise this as a possible duplicate. This means they might be the same person or organisation.
Enabling or disabling the checks
The duplicate check function can be enabled/disabled via Settings > Configuration > Duplicates Settings
Duplicate checks
There are two triggers for the duplicate check:
Weekly automated check
The weekly automated duplicate check is run for everyone at the weekend. All administrators will be emailed if duplicate constituents are detected.
Manually triggered check
The duplicate detection can be triggered by going to Data Management > Duplicates
Then select the Refresh button in the top right corner.
The process to check duplicates is a background job due to the large amounts of data it has to process and it may take some time to run depending on how large your data set is.
How the checks are run
Each constituent checked against every other constituent using a set of rules, each rule is given a confidence score.
- Personal addresses are used for individuals
- Work addresses are used for organisations/groups
- Constituents which have a linked address will not be matched
- A group will not be matched with its main contact
- Constituents which are of different types will have their score reduced to 2 even if they match a rule
|
Match method |
Confidence score |
| National ID (only applies when the Preferred language and culture is set to da-DK - in Settings | Configuration | System) |
15 |
|
Email |
15 |
| External Key | 14 |
| Email + First name + Last name | 14 |
| Email + First name | 13 |
| Email + Last name | 12 |
| Email (where profiles feature conflicting data - i.e in both the First and Last name) |
10 |
| Mobile (where there is no Email, First Name or Last Name, First line of address or Phone) |
10 |
| Phone (where there is no Email, First Name, Last Name, First line of address or Mobile) |
10 |
| First line of address + Postal Code | 8 |
| Postcode + First + Last Name | 6 |
| Postcode + First Name | 5 |
| Postcode + Last Name | 5 |
| First name + Last name (where is contradictory content in any of their First line of address, Mobile, Phone or Email fields) |
4 |
Resolving duplicates
Duplicates can be checked and resolved in the Data Management > Duplicates menu.
There are two sections, Single Matches and All Matches, there will be a note about how many potential duplicates found within the brackets:
Single Matches
The single matches displays all of the results where the target constituent (right side) only has one matched constituent. These are separated from All Matches as they are generally easier to resolve.
- Results are ordered by confidence score (highest first).
- Review the details of each constituent to determine whether constituents are duplicates.
- For each duplicate pair, select an action or leave it as no action by default.
The merge process is described here:
Use the merge options box to select the action you want to perform for the merge:
- No action
Do not do anything with this pair for now. - Merge Left
Merge the right constituent into the left constituent. The left constituent is kept. - Merge Right
Merge the left constituent into the right constituent. The right constituent is kept. - Not duplicates
Mark this pair of constituents as not being duplicates. These constituents will not be matched against each other again in future duplicate checks.
Once you have selected your actions hit Preview and update to be taken to the preview screen. You will be shown an overview of the actions about to be taken.
Confirm the choices you have made, or go back and make changes.
All Matches
The All matches displays all matches, including the single matches.
To resolve a duplicate where there is more than one potential match, you must select the constituent you want to be the target, i.e the constituent which is kept from the list of detected duplicates.
To start to resolve the potential matches click on the Start resolving box to list out all of the potential matches for that constituent
The results will display all the details you need, along with the Confidence Score, for you to make an informed decision on how to merge. Review the details of each constituent to determine whether constituents are duplicates.
For each duplicate pair, select an action or leave it as no action by default:
- No action
Do not do anything with this pair for now. - Merge Right
The merge function will now only let you merge one way as there can be multiple merges done into the target. - Not duplicates
Mark this pair of constituents as not being duplicates. These constituents will not be matched against each other again in future duplicate checks.
Once you have selected your actions hit Preview and update to be taken to the preview screen. You will be shown an overview of the actions about to be taken.
Confirm the choices you have made, or go back and make changes.
Auto merge feature
An auto merge feature is available to help to reduce the amount of time spent assigning items to merge. This can be switched on from Settings > Configuration > Duplicates Settings
The auto merge feature will merge matches that have been given the confidence score of 13 or above and are single matches (would appear on the single matches page).
| Key info: If you want to preserve duplicate constituent profiles that would be automatically merged then this option should not be enabled. |
Logs
Not Duplicates
Constituent pairs which have been marked as not duplicates can be viewed under Data Management > Duplicates > Not Duplicates
Deleting a match from here will result in them being reconsidered in the next duplicate check.
Merged
The merged log can be viewed under Data Management > Duplicates > Merged
All merges which we performed using the duplicates tool or merged via the constituent profile will be shown here.
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