Primary Key:

Primary Keys cannot be merged.

Text (Manual Merge):

All Text (Manual Merge) field types are automatically selected as ‘Manual’ types.  When there is conflicting data in any of these fields they have to be manually edited to avoid loss of data during a merge.

See here and for an example of how manual-merge text is handled when there is conflicting data.

Text (Concatenate Merge):

E.g. ‘Customer Notes’ and ‘Customer Status’

Text (Concatenate Merge) field types can be either manually merged, or they can be automatically concatenated together (strung one after the other). 

When you select ‘Concatenate’ from the menu you will be asked to select how you want to separate each value as they are strung together.  The options include:

In this example: ‘Customer Notes’ could be delimited by ‘Carriage return and Line feed’ as then the notes from one record will be appended on a new line to the notes of the other.

‘Customer Status’ is being delimited by a ‘Forward slash’, so when one record has a status “A+” and the other “B” the resulting merged value will be “A+/B”.

See here for an example of how text can be automatically merged.

Numbers:

E.g. Total Sales:

Numeric fields can be manually merged, or automatically merged with:

·         Sum: Get the total of the two records added together.

·         Average: Get the average of the value in the two records.

·         Minimum: Select the minimum value to keep.

·         Maximum: Select the maximum value to keep.

In this example, we would want the Total Sales to be added together during a merge, so we would select “Sum”.

See here for an example of how numbers can be automatically merged.

Dates & Times:

E.g. First Purchased Date:

Date and Time fields can be manually merged, or automatically merged with:

·         Minimum: Select the earliest date to keep.

·         Maximum: Select the latest date to keep.

In this example, we would want the First Purchased Date to be the earliest of the two records, so we would select “Minimum”.

See here for an example of how dates can be automatically merged.

True / False:

E.g. ‘Do Not Call’  and  ‘Allow Credit’ fields

True/False fields can be manually merged, or automatically merged according to the following rules:

·         When both the same (True + True   -or-   False + False) – keep the value that is common to both.

·         When both are different (True + False   -or-   False + True) – give precedence to one or the other with:

o   True if different – Keep True

o   False if different – Keep False

In this example “On Do Not Call List”:  Since you can be severely fined if you mail or call someone who is on a ‘Do Not Call’ list, or who has explicitly asked to not be contacted, you want to make sure in cases when two records have conflicting values, preference is give to the ‘True’ value – which is carried over to the merged record.  So we select True if different.

However if someone has been denied credit in one record, but they are allowed credit in another, we want to err on the side of caution and deny them credit, so for the ‘Allow Credit’ field we select False if different. 

Naturally these preference rules are only used when there is conflicting data.  In all cases if both records are true, then true is kept – and if both are false then false is kept.  These are just the rules that are used when the two records are different.

See here for an example of how True/False fields can be automatically merged.