Merging Duplicates in People

How to merge duplicate profiles in Tithely's People platform with our step-by-step guide. This article covers everything from logging into your Tithely Admin account, selecting potential duplicates, to successfully merging profiles to maintain a clean and organized database. Remember, merged profiles cannot be unmerged, and merging does not combine donor profiles in Tithely Giving 1.0. If you encounter a warning "Warning- One of the profiles to be merged has an associated user account." this is covered towards the end of this article.

Caution

  • Merged profiles cannot be unmerged, so please review your selections carefully before merging.
  • Merging People does not merge donor profiles within Tithely Giving 1.0. This is only for contacts within our People platform.
  • If you receive a warning "Warning- One of the profiles to be merged has an associated user account." This means the user you are editing (merging or deleting) has Admin Permissions. Scroll down for more detailed instructions.

  • Tax Statements and Giving History: While merging combines contact information for tax statement purposes, it does not merge giving history for the donor profile. See more details below. 
  • Recurring Giving: Merging duplicate profiles does not affect active recurring giving plans. Donors will need to log in using the credentials associated with the original recurring giving setup to manage or modify their plan.
  • Please note that if you have more than 1000 duplicates, we will only show the first 1000. 

How to Merge Duplicates in People

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  1. Login to your Tithely Admin account.

  2. Select People from the left-hand menu.

  3. Click the Stack icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
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  4. On the Merge Duplicates page, you'll be able to see a list of duplicate contacts. Choose the person you would like to see merging options for and click either the blue 'duplicates' button or the blue arrow.
    Note: If you have two people profiles who need to be merged and are not showing on the Duplicates list, you can change their first and last names to be the same which will prompt them to show there so that you can merge them.

  5. Click the bubble left of the profile you would like to make the primary contact
    Please Note: Any details that are in a duplicate profile, and are not in the primary profile, will be added to the primary.

  6. Click the Merge Duplicates button to merge the duplicate profiles.

Warning - One of the profiles to be merged has an associated user account.

When merging profiles in your system, you might encounter a warning stating, "Warning- One of the profiles to be merged has an associated user account." This warning indicates that at least one of the profiles involved in the merge has administrative permissions. Here’s what you need to know and do in such situations:

  • Profiles with Admin Permissions: If the profiles being merged all have admin permissions linked to their email, merging them without adjusting these permissions means they will retain their admin status. Upon their next login, the system will automatically recreate their account with admin permissions intact.
  • Merging Profiles with Differing Permissions: If one profile has admin permissions and the other doesn't ensure to choose the profile with admin permissions as the primary. This ensures the merged profile retains the necessary admin access.
  • Avoiding Errors During Merge:
    1. Navigate to Global Settings > My Organization > Users.
    2. Locate the admin user you intend to merge with and click the Trash Can icon to temporarily remove their admin permissions.
    3. Proceed with the merging process as outlined in the Merge People instructions.

By carefully managing admin permissions before merging profiles, you can ensure the process is smooth and error-free, maintaining the integrity of admin access within your system.

Tax Statements and Giving History

Merging profiles in Tithely People combines contact and giving information but does not merge donation history in the donor's view. If a donor accidentally created donations under separate profiles, these donations will remain separate in their donor accounts even after the profiles are merged.

This can lead to situations where a donor might see duplicate transactions on their bank statement, or their giving history in Tithely Giving might not reflect their total giving. In these cases, you can:

  • Inform the donor that their giving history reflects donations made under each individual profile, even after the merge.
  • Advise the donor to review their giving history under both original profile emails to get a complete picture of their contributions.
  • Manually combine donation records in Tithely Giving on the backend if necessary for reporting purposes. This is done by merging people. Otherwise, two tax statements will be generated because the system is told these are two separate people. 

Tithely Tip: We've created an article to help guide donors through what to do if they've created more than 1 donor account. You can send it to them as part of your communications. 

Recurring Giving 

Merging duplicate profiles does not affect active recurring giving plans. Donors will need to log in using the credentials associated with the original recurring giving setup to manage or modify their plan.

  • Admin assistance: If a donor is unable to access an account with recurring donations (e.g., due to a mistyped email address), you can cancel or edit their recurring donations on their behalf.

User Permissions needed to access People
Account Owner, Admin, or Limited Access with access granted to People. If you have additional questions, please reference this article.