Merging is when you take 2 individual accounts or contacts and combine them into a single record you would like to keep. Accounts and contacts are the only entities where a merge is possible. Finally, you must only select two records to merge, as Pipeliner will not allow you to merge more than two records! 

This article covers:

Overview

Prerequisites for Merging Records

Delete Rights

Best practice for merging

Creating "Similar" Accounts and Contacts

The most common reason for merging is that you have found duplicate accounts or contacts that have been created and you would like to merge them together. This way, you are keeping records up to date and ensuring that you or your colleagues are not accidentally updating the wrong record. 

Merging Accounts and Contacts is available for our Business and Enterprise Tier customers.

You must have the ability to both delete records AND be the record owner. This holds true because, when merging, you select one of the records to be the “Master” and this record will be the one that remains post-merge — the other record will be deleted and gone forever. 

Deletion rights and the ability to change yourself to be the Owner are both established in the Admin Module by your Administrator. Please read our article on Getting Started with Units, Users, and Roles for more information. 

NOTE: You have to be the owner of the record you are trying to delete, but do not have to be the owner of the master record you are merging into. 

Only users that have Deletion Rights will be able to merge. For Enterprise Tier customers, User Roles are customizable so it may be possible that you can delete a contact without being able to delete an account. Please check with your Administrator to ensure you have these features enabled. As you can see here, this User Role allows for deletion of both Accounts and Contacts ⤵

If you do not see a Delete button on the toolbar for the record you want to delete and you are the Owner of the record, then you do not have deletion rights for that type of record and will need to speak to your Pipeliner administrator.

In addition to having deletion rights, you MUST also be the Owner of a record in Pipeliner in order to delete it. If you are not the Owner, you’ll need to use the "Change" button and make yourself the Owner before deleting the record ⤵

Your ability to change Ownership also depends on how you were set up as a user by your Administrator. You must have Manager rights within the Sales Unit that the record belongs to in order to change Ownership to yourself.

If you are not the Owner and try to merge anyway, the system will not allow it and will notify you ⤵

This example shows how to merge Account records although the process is identical for a Contact.
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​NOTE: As well as being able to merge 2 Contacts together by selecting them from the Contacts menu, you can also merge from the Contacts tab of an open Account record.

Make sure you are using the List View in Pipeliner. This is the easiest way to select and edit records ⤵

Start from the “All Users” profile so you get access to all Accounts available ⤵

Use the "Filter" tab and look for the Account name so you can select the records you wish to merge ⤵

Once you find the Accounts you want to Merge, remember you MUST have Deletion Rights AND be the Owner of the non-master record as described previously. 

NOTE: A useful tip is to use the inline editing available in the List View to update the name of the non-master account so you can easily identify Master vs non-master. We’d advise that you add the word “delete” to the name to be able to easily differentiate between records ⤵

Then, select both records and click the "Merge" button, located in the top toolbar ⤵

Then select the Master account you want all the data into.

NOTE: This is where updating the account name is useful to help you pick the right record! ⤵

After selecting the Master account, you can use the “Advanced Mode” located at the bottom to manually define the fields you wish to keep. This will allow you to make sure the record you choose to keep has all the accurate, updated information. When you choose "Advanced Mode", the Fields from each account will appear side-by-side and you can go through and choose the correct values to retain.

Or, you can “Select All” to keep all fields from one account ⤵

In order to limit the possibility of creating duplicates, please note that Pipeliner will notify you when creating a new account or contact that already exists. A “Similar Accounts” (or "Similar Contacts") warning will pop up on the right side of your Account or Contact creation screen.

This happens when there is an exact match on the name of the Account or Contact ⤵