ARTERNAL has two ways to merge duplicate contacts.
Merge Assistant. Finds duplicates for you by name or email and merges them in groups.
Selection cart. Merges two contacts you pick and lets you choose which one to keep.
Merges can't be undone. Read What happens to your data below before you start.
Which tool to use
Use the Merge Assistant to clean up many duplicates at once. It always keeps the oldest contact you select.
Use the selection cart when you need to choose which contact stays, for example when the newer record is the one your team uses.
Merge with the Merge Assistant
The Merge Assistant is turned on by request. If you don't see the Merge Assistant button on your Contacts page, contact our support team.
Go to Contacts and click Merge Assistant at the top of the page. It opens in a new tab.
Choose how to find duplicates: Full name, Email address, or both. If you check both, contacts must match on both. Capital letters and extra spaces are ignored.
Run the scan and review the duplicates it finds.
Check the contacts you want to merge. The oldest contact you check is the one that's kept. To keep a newer contact, uncheck the older ones.
Start the merge and confirm in the Merge Duplicate Contacts window.
After merging, open the kept contact and check its details. Make sure the phone numbers, addresses and emails you expected are there. Merges can't be undone, so if anything is missing, contact our support team right away.
Good to know
Archived contacts aren't included in the scan.
Contacts you don't have permission to edit are skipped.
You can't merge contacts from different organizations.
If you select a large number of contacts (around 60 or more), you'll be asked to split them into smaller batches.
Add selected contacts to the select cart only adds the contacts to your selection cart. It doesn't merge them.
Merge with the selection cart
Add the two contacts to your selection cart. The cart must have exactly two contacts in it.
In the selection cart, click the three dots (⋮) and select Merge Contacts.
In the Merge Contacts window, the contact on the right, Primary (FINAL), is the one that's kept. The Secondary contact is merged into it. Click Swap to switch them.
Review the Primary Info and Additional Info tabs. The list under "The following will be added from Secondary Contact" shows what will be added to the kept contact.
Click Merge, then confirm with Merge Contacts.
After merging, open the kept contact and check its details. Make sure the phone numbers, addresses and emails you expected are there. Merges can't be undone, so if anything is missing, contact our support team right away.
To merge three or more duplicates, merge two at a time and keep the same contact as Primary (FINAL) each time.
What happens to your data
Both tools move the following to the kept contact.
Invoices and consignments.
Notes and tasks.
Tags, roles and relationships.
The activity timeline and SmartMails.
Associated artworks and documents.
Phones and addresses. Both tools add the merged contact's phone numbers and addresses to the kept contact. The added entries get a new label so you can tell them apart. The selection cart adds a number, for example "Primary 1 Phone." The Merge Assistant adds "(From Merge)," for example "Primary 2 (From Merge) Phone."
Emails. Emails from the merged contact are added if the kept contact doesn't already have them. The kept contact's main email doesn't change.
Custom fields. If both contacts have a value, the kept contact's value stays. Empty fields are filled in from the merged contact.
Name and profile details. Both tools keep the kept contact's name. The Merge Assistant takes the honorific, title, company and website from the newest contact that has a value. The selection cart keeps the Primary (FINAL) contact's details and fills in empty fields from the other contact, except company.
Timeline. A note is added to the kept contact's timeline: "Contact was merged with: [name]."
Tips
Add the kept contact to lists first. If the contact you're merging away is on any lists, add the kept contact to those lists before you merge.
Merge in batches. In the Merge Assistant, work through large cleanups in smaller groups.