How does prospect merging work?

Summary

This article explains how to merge a customer prospect record with another.

More Information

Prospect merging is useful when you have two prospects on file who turn out to be the same person or company. To avoid not knowing which one to update, you have the facility to copy any accumulated information from one to the other, and remove the first, leaving just one prospect with all relevant information attached.

Merging can be done in two ways.

Manual Prospect Merge

Go to " Sales Prospecting Add or Edit Prospects".

• Using the search, find the prospect you want to keep, and press [Edit].
• Press <Shift+F6>. You will see a dialogue with your current prospect on the right, and prompting you for the "Source" on the left.
• If you know the number of the prospect from whom you want to copy information, enter it here, otherwise use the <Ctrl+F1> search to locate it.
• When the correct prospect is displayed, press <F2> to merge.

The "Source" will be deleted, once all information has been copied to the "Destination". Remember that all details that were on the "Source" prospect will be transferred to the "Destination" prospect overwriting the details that were present. If you wish to keep the Name, Address, Telephone and Fax numbers on the Destination Prospect, you will need to update the Source Prospect else it will overwrite everything. This has to be done manually.

Duplicate Check after Editing

After amending a new or existing prospect, you will be prompted "Do you want to accept or ignore any changes made, or check for a duplicate prospect?".

• If you select [Duplicate], the system will automatically search for similar prospects using the prospect's name, address, contact name and phone number, displaying any possible duplicates in a list.

• From here you can choose to edit a possible duplicate using <F5>, or merge with a selected duplicate using <F2>.

The prospect you choose from the list will be kept, any information entered for the prospect you were amending will be copied over, and the prospect you were amending will be removed.

• If you choose to merge, you will be returned to " Add or Edit Prospects", showing the prospect you chose to merge with. This will now have all the information it had before, plus any attached to the prospect for whom you decided to do a duplicate check.

See also

• How do I create a new prospect?
• How do I find a prospect?
• How does prospect Contacts Due work?

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Keywords AND Misspellings

duplicate, prospects, merge