Duplicate records

The Duplicate records page shows you the person (contact) and organization records that Ortto has identified as duplicates, based on those records’ primary unique identifier.

You can toggle between the person and organization records using the view menu on the top right-hand side. 

This page will primarily focus on resolving person record duplicates, but the process is much the same for organization records.

NOTE: The record you see marked as Primary on the Duplicate records page is determined by the primary merge rule. This rule can be set by clicking the cog icon and choosing your preferred rule. The primary record and the merge rule can be changed, depending on how you choose to merge duplicate records. Read on to find out more. 

Manage duplicate records

In the example below, Ortto has identified 3 person records with the same email address: “lauren@example.com”.

You can resolve this in two ways:

• Select a specific record to be the primary record, and merge the other (non-primary) duplicate records into it.
• Select a record based on a recent interaction or age to be the primary record, and merge the other (non-primary) duplicate records into it.

In both cases, duplicate records are merged like so:

1. If a value exists for a field on the primary contact record: keep the primary data.
2. If no value exists for a field on the primary contact record: set the value using data from a non-primary record.

Additionally, on merge, as audiences are based on set entry and exit criteria, if data in a merged record qualifies the contact for an audience they were not previously a part of, they will enter into this audience. The same is true of exiting the contact from an audience.

A more detailed explanation of how records are merged is provided below.

Merge duplicates to a specific primary record

In the list of duplicates, select the person record that you’d like to identify as the primary record. The primary record is the one with which other (non-primary) records will be merged. 

Once you’ve identified the primary record, you can choose to merge all or just some of the remaining duplicate records.

• To merge all the records, select the bulk selection checkbox in the top-left of the records table.
• To merge some of the records, select the checkboxes of the relevant records.

Next, preview the merged record by clicking Preview merge. This will show you the combined field values for the person record. 

After viewing the preview, click Confirm merge to continue, or Back to make changes.

When you’re ready to complete the merge, on the Confirm merge > OK.

Merge all duplicates to a record based on interaction or age

To make a record with the most recent interaction (most recent engagement, most recently seen, or most recently entered a journey) or age (first created or last created) the primary for every duplicate record, click the Merge all button.

On the Merge all popup, select the Merge rule to determine which of the duplicate records you want to assign as the primary record:

• Most recent engagement – The record that most recently interacted with your content will be set as the primary record. Engagement is based on the following activities:
  • Opened or clicked an email
  • Clicked an SMS
  • Clicked a push notification
  • Submitted a capture form.
• Most recently seen – The record that most recently visited your website or interacted with a message or notification will be set as the primary record. Most recently seen is based on a person’s Last seen field, which is populated when the person performs an interaction (or touch). 
• Most recently entered a Journey – The record that most recently entered (started) a journey will be set as the primary record. This is based on the Started journey activity.
• Last created – The record that was created last (the newest record) will be set as the primary record.
• First created – The record that was created first (the oldest record) will be set as the primary record. 

Then, type the required confirmation and click Merge to complete the merge.

How primary and non-primary records are merged

The outcomes for different data types when primary and non-primary person records are merged are described below.

Activities

Activity data associated with the non-primary records will not be copied to the primary record.

The primary record will retain only its own activity data.

Tags

Tags associated with the non-primary record that do not already exist on the primary record will be appended to the primary record.

This means that if, for example, a primary record has a tag called “London”, and the non-primary record has a tag called “Tokyo”, the primary record will inherit “Tokyo” (the merged record will have both tags: “London” and “Tokyo”).

Fields

Field data associated with non-primary person records will be copied to the primary person record if the primary record does not have a value for that field. Existing data associated with the primary record will not be overwritten. 

For example, you have a field called “Plan tier”. 

If the primary and non-primary records have different existing values for that field – the primary record has a value of “Gold” and a non-primary record has a value of “Silver” – then the primary record will retain its existing field value (“Gold”). 

However, if the primary record has no value for that field, but a non-primary record has a value of “Silver”, the primary record will inherit the value “Silver”. If none of the records have a value for that field, it will remain empty.

Merging Salesforce records

Regarding the merging of records, Ortto defers to Salesforce as the authority, so any records merged within Ortto will not translate back to Salesforce. 

However, when you merge Salesforce records in Salesforce, Ortto will consider the merged (non-primary) records to be deleted. Therefore, if you have enabled the Automatically archive records when linked record is deleted or removed for your Salesforce data source (in Ortto), the merged record(s) will be archived in Ortto upon a Salesforce sync.

With this, Ortto will retain the data associated with the chosen primary record (as determined in Salesforce). Only activities, field data and tags associated with the primary contact will be kept, and those associated with the merged contact will be archived along with the record. This differs from the merge rules described above for records merged in Ortto because the merge occurred in Salesforce, and so is not treated as a merge within Ortto. Ortto simply handles the record according to the data received from Salesforce, and the settings you have applied to your Salesforce data source (in Ortto).

As such, any non-Salesforce data (e.g. data from custom or other data source activities) and any activities that existed on the non-primary record in Ortto are not copied into the primary record.