This decision guide walks you through whether to Merge, Delete, or Leave Alone a potential duplicate contact or household. For the step-by-step merge mechanics, visit the articles "Duplicate Contact Matching," "Duplicate Household Matching," and "Duplicate Check & Merge."
💡Quick Answers
- When should I merge vs. delete vs. leave alone? Merge if both records are the same person with real data on each. Delete if one is a test record or an empty re-entry with no forms, ledger, or activity. Leave Alone if it's actually a sibling, or two different people.
- Can I undo a merge? No. Merges are permanent. You can rebuild the separated records by following "Fix an Incorrect Duplicate Merge."
- What if a Billing ledger is attached? Special rules apply. Deletes require the contact to be 0% financially responsible across all terms with no electronic payments. See "Billing: How-to Merge or Delete Contacts with Billing Accounts."
- What does the Match Score mean? It's a confidence signal from 0 to 301+. Herculean (301+) is almost certainly a match; Weak or Unknown usually isn't. Always review the side-by-side before trusting the score.
In this Article
- How Duplicates Happen
- Before You Merge: 5 Questions to Ask
- Verdict: ✅ MERGE
- Verdict: 🗑️ DELETE
- Verdict: ❌ LEAVE ALONE
- When a Merge Goes Wrong
- Preventing Duplicates Going Forward
How Duplicates Happen
Most duplicates come from one of three places:
- A family inquired, then applied with a slightly different email/name/birth date and forms didn't auto-match on import.
- A family inquired or applied across multiple years and records weren't merged year-over-year.
- A sibling or parent linked to several students gets flagged as a duplicate of themselves.
The checker runs once per day, early morning, so a match surfaced today likely came from yesterday's activity.
Before You Merge: 5 Questions to Ask
Run through these in order before you click Merge or Delete. If a single question lands you on a clear verdict, stop and follow that path.
| Question | What to Look For | Verdict |
| Same person, or a sibling with a similar name? | Compare Birth Date, grade, and parent names. A shared address + last name is not enough; siblings typically live together. Different DOBs = almost always a sibling. | ❌ Leave Alone |
| Is one record a test or empty placeholder? | No forms, no checklist progress, no ledger, no notes, no emails logged. | 🗑️ Delete the empty record |
| Does either record have a Billing ledger attached? | If yes, special rules apply. Deletes require 0% financial responsibility across all terms with no electronic payments. See "Billing- How-to Merge or Delete Contacts with Billing Accounts" | ✅ Merge (with billing steps), or stop and review |
| Re-inquiry across years? Same family returning in a new apply year? | Same student, different term. One student should always have one record carrying history forward. | ✅ Merge |
| What does the Match Score say? |
301+ Herculean: Almost certainly the same person. Safe for bulk merge if no billing ledger is attached. 225–300 Strong: Very likely. Review and merge individually. 150–224 Medium: Review carefully. Often a sibling or name coincidence. 125–149 Weak / 0–124 Unknown: Usually not a duplicate. Leave Alone unless externally confirmed. |
If you're still unsure, default to ❌ Leave Alone. |
Verdict: ✅ MERGE
When it's the right answer:
- Same student; two records from an inquiry to application flow that didn't auto-link.
- Same parent/guardian showing up across students with slight name or email variations.
- Same household at the same address (typo in street name, different "Unit" format, etc.).
- Re-inquiry across years; one real student, two records.
How to do it:
- Pending Review Queue: Settings > Fields & Data > Duplicate Contact Matching (or Duplicate Household Matching) > Resolve > review > pick the winning record (data wins on conflicts) > Confirm.
- Manual Merge Tool (for pairs not in the queue): Settings > Fields & Data > Duplicate Check and Merge. Paste both contact IDs from the URL of each record > review > merge. See "Duplicate Check & Merge" for a complete list of steps.
- Bulk Merge: Reserve for Herculean matches with no Billing attached. Spot-check a few pairs
Verdict: 🗑️ DELETE
When it's the right answer:
- An empty or test record with no forms, ledger, or real communications.
- A partial record from a form or checklist the parent never finished, when a complete record exists elsewhere.
- A duplicate with no unique data to preserve (if there is unique data, merge instead).
How To Do It: Open the losing record > Edit > Delete Record > Confirm.
Billing Caveat: Deletion of a record with a Billing account is blocked until the contact is set to 0% financial responsibility across all terms for every student they're attached to, with no electronic payments. See "Billing- How-to Merge or Delete Contacts with Billing Accounts" to learn more.
⚠️ Important Note
Deletion is permanent. If in doubt, Merge instead to preserve the historical data.
Verdict: ❌ LEAVE ALONE
When it's the right answer:
- Siblings with the same last name, same household, different DOBs confirm that they are not duplicates, even if scored high.
- Two genuinely different people who share a name confirmed by distinct DOB, parents, or ID.
- Weak or Unknown match scores with no supporting evidence.
How To Do It:
- On the Duplicate Contact Matching or Duplicate Household Matching page, click Resolve > No, hide this match. The status changes to Ignored and is removed from the default Pending Review list.
- Re-surface ignored matches later via Filter Options > status Ignored.
When a Merge Goes Wrong
If you merge two records that turn out to be different people, the merge cannot be undone, but the records can be rebuilt. The process involves recreating the second contact, relinking forms via Support, and cleaning up related contacts.
Full walkthrough: "Fix an Incorrect Duplicate Merge."
One-touch Tip for Support
In your support request, include the URL/ID of the merged record, the URL/ID of the newly recreated record, and the names of the forms to move. That's everything the team needs to resolve in one pass.
Preventing Duplicates Going Forward
A little prevention saves a lot of merging:
- Enable Auto-Merge on the Basic Setup page. In Settings > Basic Setup, turn on Auto-Merge Forms With Strong Matches so inquiry and application forms with a Strong or Herculean score auto-merge into the existing contact on import. Medium and Weak matches still route to the Forms Inbox. See "Basic Setup."
- Enable Duplicate Matching on imports. When running the Import Tool, leave duplicate matching on so incoming rows are checked against existing contacts first.
- Review the duplicate queues weekly. Queues grow fast during peak enrollment windows. A weekly sweep of Herculean and Strong matches keeps the list manageable.
- Use the manual merge tool for pairs the system misses. Two records with different names or emails may never auto-match. Follow the steps in "Duplicate Check & Merge" to merge any pair by Contact ID.
- Sweep household matches separately. Duplicate households spike after application season; parents type the same address three different ways. Herculean household matches are generally safe to bulk-resolve.
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