Duplicate Clients

Sometimes several Client Records may be inadvertently created using separate Person records instead of linking to the same person.

For example:

• There is already a client record for a Person called Jenny Smith

• A new client (Jenny Smith) is added using Create Client with New Person instead of Create Client from Existing Person

• You end up with two Jenny Smiths rather than one Jenny Smith with two separate client records.

The concept of Client vs Person is discussed in the section Client vs Person.

Spotting duplicates

From the main client page against Personal Details there is a tab marked All Engagements. If you click on this tab you will see a list of all client engagements for that person (in our example above - for Jenny Smith)

Below the first list of client engagements for Jenny Smith there may be a second list of Client Engagements that are for people of the same name.

Note

It is important to realise that these potential duplicates are listed purely because they have the same name as the primary person.

It is quite possible that they are two different people with the same name.

Merging duplicates

At the bottom of the list of possible duplicates is a button marked Check possible merge It is safe to click on this button as no merging happens until further action is taken in the next step.

After clicking on the Check possible merge button you will be presented with a dialog listing all the possible duplicates including pertinent information such as date of birth, ethnicity, address etc.

The first client in the list is the Person corresponding current client that you are viewing. Clients listed below are the possible duplicates.

Against each person there are two check boxes

Select to Merge

and

Use as master rec

Ticking Select to Merge indicates that you have checked the details and are happy that this person is the same as any other person in the list for whom you have ticked Select to Merge

In addition you need to tick the box Use as Master rec against one and one only of the records This record will be used as the definitive ‘master’ record when performing the merge so that if there is some conflict of details between the merging records the system will use the one marked as the master as being the correct details.

When you are ready to perform the merge you just need to click the Merge button and the merge will be performed.

Finally you will be presented with a dialog indicating success and when this dialog is dismissed the client record is refreshed to reflect the new state.