Manual Merge

Last published at: May 23rd, 2025
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Did you know that Duplicate Check contains an Auto Merge Feature?

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The Manual Merge page lets you decide which fields you want to keep in the merging process. All duplicate records in the group are displayed next to each other in table form. You can horizontally scroll through them. You can choose a master record, manually select the fields you want to keep, or enter custom data.

Example of the Manual Merge page

Result Fields Only Only show fields defined as Result Fields in DC Setup.
Read Only Show/hide read-only fields.
Empty  Show/hide empty fields.
Equal Show/hide fields that are equal to each other.
Merge Preview Show/hide the Merge Preview column.
Navigate to a page showing extensive information about the records, such as details, relationships, sharing settings, permissions you have on the records, and more.
Share the merge page with someone else.
Record Uncheck a record at the 'Record' row (first row) to exclude it from the merge.
Master By default, the 'last modified' record is set as the master record when merging multiple records. You can change that by clicking the 'Master' button on another record, thus giving it the master status. Learn more about Merge Rules‍ here.

Selecting Fields

Duplicate Check will make a proposal on which fields to keep, based on the Merge Rules‍. It will always pick a field with a value over a field with no value. If a merge rule initially points to an empty field, the rule is re-applied to decide which field value from the remaining records is best suited to be used in the master record.

You can manually decide which field value you would like to keep in the merge by selecting it. The selected fields will be highlighted. These fields are the ones that will be kept in the merge. Click 'Select all fields' to select all the fields in a column at once.

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The Merge overview page is limited to displaying a maximum of 15 records for manual merging.

Custom Entry

You can change the proposed values on any field and write down a custom value. You can do this by selecting the field in the Merge Preview column. The selected field will be highlighted, and a text bubble with an input field will appear on the right. Enter your value in the field and click on the blue 'Update' button. The custom field will be highlighted after editing, and its value will be kept in the merge.

Merge and Reset

Once you have selected the fields you would like to keep, you are ready to merge. Press the 'Merge' button at the bottom of the page to merge and go back to the results overview page. Press 'Merge and Next' to merge and continue working on the next duplicate records. Duplicate Check will now merge the records into one quality record.

If you are lost, you can always press 'Reset' to get all fields back to the way they were before you started making changes.

Merging with Limited Access

If a user has sufficient permissions to merge records of an object in general, but has read-only access to specific fields, a warning will be shown if the read-only access is a problem for the merge according to the field merge rules. The user is advised to contact an administrator to merge the records according to the merge rules, and is warned that if they proceed to merge the records themselves, the affected fields will be filled with the values of the master record.

If you do not want certain users to be able to merge at all, use the Set for Merge‍ feature. Users without delete rights for an object can still prepare duplicate records for merge, but will have a "Set for Merge" button instead of the Merge button. Records that have been set for merge this way will be gathered in a DC Job, to be processed by someone with delete rights.

URL Addressable

The Manual Merge page can be accessed via a URL. This allows you to create a link that opens a manual merge page containing records to merge. In addition, a success URL can be set.

/lightning/cmp/dupcheck__dc3MergePage?c__mergeData={"idList":["00Q5500000BSk8HEAT","00Q5500000BSk8JEAT"],"type":"idList", "successUrl": "https://plauti.com"}

The "idList" parameter contains the IDs of the records you want to merge on the manual merge page. Put the IDs of the records you want to display between the square brackets and separate them with a comma, as shown in the example. You can open a maximum of 15 records. Providing at least 2 IDS in this parameter is required.

The "successUrl" parameter contains the URL of the page where the 'Merge' button on the manual merge page will lead. If no success URL is set, you will be redirected to the master record. This parameter is optional and can therefore be removed from the URL.

Custom merge logic

In our Premium edition, it's possible to execute custom merge logic by using our Merge Plugins. Use these plugins to execute Apex code right before or after a merge is performed. Learn more.

Remarks about merging

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Be careful when using the merge feature. Merging records cannot be undone!

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Upon merge, only the Master record is kept: the losing records are deleted. Related records will be reparented to the Master record.

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When merging Contacts, Duplicate Check executes a Salesforce Apex merge. As a result of this, any present Campaign members are hard-deleted when Contacts are merged. This prevents Campaign members being retrieved from the recycle bin which would result in duplicate Campaign members.

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NPSP - Merging Contacts and their Households

When you are merging Contacts that are part of different Households, and that are the only Contacts for their respective Households, the Household Accounts will be merged as well, following the Account Merge Rules.