Information recorded for persons and prospect persons can be merged. If the organization registers the same person more than once, conflicting or additional information about the person may be recorded on different records. Merging information essentially copies selected details from a duplicate record to a master record as required. A master record is the valid record to be used by case processing. Merging information ensures that the master record contains all the required information about a person and reduces the possibility of inaccurate information being used by the system.
Information can be merged from a person record to another person record. Information can also be merged from a prospect person record to a person record.
For example, Linda is registered as a prospect person under her maiden name, "Linda Smith". Linda is later registered as a person under her married name, "Linda Williams". Linda requests that the organization use her married name when sending correspondence. To facilitate this, Linda Smith's prospect record is merged to the Linda Williams person record. Any valid information on the prospect record is also copied across to the person record.
Merging information for persons and prospect persons consists of three stages, marking a record as a duplicate of another record, merging information from the duplicate record to the master record, and completing the merge. Optionally, duplicate records can be unmarked and a merge can be quit and resumed. A list of duplicate records is automatically maintained.