Overview
This article explains how to clean up contact profiles and reassign transactions in the most ideal way after an inadvertent contact merge has happened.
Linked Articles:
- Using the Contact Duplicates Tool
Understanding the Merge
You may find that contacts have merged in Kindful, and that the merge has unintentionally brought together donor histories into one profile. This can happen as a result an admin user of your Kindful account merging two potential duplicate pairs. It can also happen when you or your donors enter in the same email address on multiple donor profiles, and then confirm the email addresses. The confirmation of the donor's email address will automatically merge all profiles containing this email into a singular profile in Kindful. This is the most common scenario when automatic merging takes place.
Common examples of this happening would be from the following:
- A spousal unit has separate contact records created, but uses the same email address for both.
- E.g. John Doe and Jane Doe each use the email address "thedoefamily@gmail.com"
- A donor has a personal donor account as well as a business donor account, and uses the same email address for both accounts.
- E.g. John Doe and John Doe Business both use the same email address "johndoe@johndoebusiness.com"
Best Practices for the Contact Profile
In the event that you have two profiles that merge into one, it is common that you will want to re-create the secondary profile that was merged into the primary one. To get separate profiles again, we recommend simply creating a new contact profile that is named like the profile that was merged, and populate it with the correct contact information.
It is advised to use either a separate email address for the new profile, or to not use one at all. If you re-use the same email address again, the same automatic merging will take place. We also recommend letting the donor know to use two separate email addresses when making donations again in the future.
Best Practice for the Billing Profile(s) and Transactions
Similar to the above step, in the event that you have two profiles that merge into one, it is common that you will want to recreate the secondary profile's transactions that merged into the primary one. You will want to do this for things like record keeping, tax receipts, and donor integrity.
Once you have created the secondary profile, you will need to recreate the transactions again on the newly created profile. These can be added by using the + Add New button found in the upper left-hand corner of your Kindful account. You can use this to re-add all of the "missing" transactions.
Be sure after you get these added, that you DELETE the gifts from the existing merged record. This will ensure that the donations across the multiple profiles do not overlap or appear duplicated.
When a contact merge takes place, the billing profiles will be combined into the newly merged record; this merges the donor's personal payment method with his or her business payment method. In this event, you may need to contact the donor to get one of the payment methods again, and apply it to the appropriate and newly created contact profile that does not contain the billing method. You also may need to consider setting up any recurring donations again on the newly created contact record. You can also remove the additional billing profile from the merged contact record.
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