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Merge Duplicate Constituents

Goal: Combine two records that are really the same person into one, moving their donations, volunteer hours, event registrations, and everything else onto the record you keep — while preserving both records' emails and phone numbers.

Find likely duplicates​

Open Constituents. If Omnivo detects people who share an email address, a phone number, or the same name and date of birth, a Possible duplicates panel appears at the top of the list. Each pair shows why it matched, along with donation counts, volunteer hours, and whether either record has a login — so you can decide which record to keep.

For each pair you can:

  • Review & merge — open the merge assistant with both records pre-filled.
  • Not a duplicate — dismiss the pair so it stops appearing.

:::tip Family members are not duplicates Households often share a phone number or email. When two records share contact info but have different last names or clearly different first names (for example, Mike and Cynthia Baker), Omnivo flags the pair as a possible household instead — consider adding them to a shared household rather than merging them. Merging two different people cannot be cleanly undone. :::

Merge two constituents​

You can also start from any constituent profile: open the record you want to keep and choose Merge duplicate… from the actions menu.

  1. Pick the records. The profile you started from is the record that will be kept. Search for the duplicate to merge in (or swap the direction if you picked them in the wrong order).
  2. Review the fields. Every profile field where the two records differ is shown side by side — name, date of birth, address, email, phone, and more. The kept record's value is pre-selected; switch any field to the duplicate's value if it's more accurate. Whatever you choose for email and phone, the other record's emails and phone numbers are never lost — they're preserved as Alternate Emails and Alternate Phones on the merged profile.
  3. Review the impact. The assistant lists exactly what will move: "14 donations, 220 volunteer hours, 3 event registrations…" It also warns about anything that needs attention, like both records being registered for the same event.
  4. Confirm. Tick the acknowledgement and click Merge. All history moves to the kept record; the duplicate is retired and disappears from lists and searches.

When a merge is blocked​

Omnivo refuses to merge, and tells you why, when:

  • Both records have active logins. Disable one of the two accounts first (Administration → Users), then merge.
  • Both records have an active recurring donation. Cancel or consolidate one schedule first so the donor can never be double-charged.
  • Either record has already been merged, or is a system-generated placeholder.

After the merge​

  • The kept profile shows the combined giving history, volunteer hours, receipts, and communications, and its giving totals are recalculated automatically.
  • A pinned Merge record note is added to the kept profile listing the duplicate's details as they were — name, emails, phones, date of birth, address — and everything that moved, so nothing about the original record is ever lost from view.
  • The duplicate's emails and phone numbers appear under the kept profile's contact details as alternates.
  • If the duplicate had a login (and the kept record didn't), the login moves to the kept record; any signed-in sessions on the duplicate are signed out.
  • Opening the retired duplicate shows a notice pointing to the record it was merged into.
  • Every merge is recorded in the merge history, including what moved, who performed it, and when.
warning

Merging is permanent. The duplicate record is retired (not deleted) and a snapshot is kept for support purposes, but there is no undo button — double-check you're keeping the correct record first.