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You can flag a customer as a duplicate and merge or close it later. Flagging a duplicate customer is for informational purposes only and does not effect either customer.

Before you begin

•Obtain the customer number of the primary customer.

To flag a duplicate customer:

1.Open Customer Services from the Desktop.
The Customer|Search page appears.

2.Search for and select the duplicate customer.
If you selected the default contact, the Customer|Basic page will appear, otherwise the Customer|Advanced page will appear.

3.Select the Basic tab, if necessary.

4.Expand the Customer State section.

5.Click to search for the customer that you want to flag as the 'Duplicate Customer'.

6.Click 'Apply'.
A window confirms that the customer was updated.

7.Click 'OK'.

Sometimes existing customers accidentally make new online customers. Sometimes two customer households join together. Regardless of the reason, you can merge their customers.

Before you do, it is important to think about which customer will be the keeper (the primary customer) and which will be merged into it (the secondary customer). If the two customers are duplicates, it does not matter which is which, but if you are merging two customers that contain different customer data, the order is important.

Multiple customers can be merged into a single keeper, but each one must be merged separately.

Once merged, the secondary customer:

•becomes read-only. It cannot be added to orders or updated, but it can be deleted;

•is added to the keeper customer's contacts and Duplicate Accounts section of the Customer|Basic page

Most of the information from the secondary customer is added to the keeper customer.

The following information is not transferred:

•The Additional Customer Details section of the Customer|Advanced page.

•The Agent Organization Details section of the Customer|Basic page (Agent customers).

•The Organization Details section of the Customer|Basic page (Organization customers).

•The Customer Summary section of the Customer|Basic page, except the 'Customer Class' field if the primary customer does not have one assigned.

•The Marketing Data section of the Customer|Basic page.

Before You Begin

Before performing the merge:

•Obtain the customer number of the primary customer.

•If the secondary customer has a balance, transfer the account balance to the primary customer.

You cannot complete a merge if the secondary customer has a balance.

Merging Customers

To merge customers:

1.Open Customer Services from the Desktop.
The Customer|Search page appears.

2.Search for and select the secondary customer you want to merge into the keeper/primary customer.
If you selected the default contact, the Customer|Basic page will appear, otherwise the Customer|Advanced page will appear.

3.Select the Basic tab, if necessary.

4.Expand the Customer State section.

5.Enter the customer number of the keeper customer in the 'Merge to Customer' field.

6.Enter a reason for merging the customer in the 'State Change Reason' field.

7.Click 'Merge'.
A window prompts you to confirm the merge with the primary customer.

8.Click 'OK'.
A window confirms that the customers were merged.

9.Click 'OK'.

The secondary customer's state is set to Closed. The 'State Change Description' field displays the description you entered and the 'Parent Customer Number' field displays the primary customer number.

Clicking the 'Parent Customer Number' field will display the primary customer. The primary customer's Customer|Basic page displays the secondary customer record in the Duplicate Accounts section.

After customers are merged, duplicate contacts can be returned when searching.

To prevent staff from using duplicate contacts on orders:

1.Open General Configuration from the Desktop.

2.Select the Lists tab.
The Lists|Search page appears.

3.Search for and select the contact types list.
The Lists|Basic page appears.

4.Select the Entries tab.
The Lists|Entries page appears.

5.In the 'Key' field, add a new type called hide, remove or something similar that is meaningful to your organization.

6.Click 'Add Entry'.

7.In the 'English' field, enter the term you would like to appear on the Customer|Advanced page in the 'Contact Type' field.

8.Click 'Apply'
A window confirms that the list was updated.

9.Open Customer Services from the Desktop.
The Customer|Search page appears.

10.Search for and select the customer whose contact information that you want to hide.
If you selected the default contact, the Customer|Basic page will appear, otherwise the Customer|Advanced page will appear.

11.Select the Advanced tab, if necessary.

12.Select the contact that you want to hide from the 'Contact ID' field.

13.Select hide (or the contact type that you just created) from the 'Contact Type' dropdown list.

14.Click 'Apply'.
A window confirms that the customer was updated.

15.For every duplicate contact that you want to hide, repeat the process from Step 10.

16.Open Business Intelligence and Reports from the Desktop.

17.Select the Business Intelligence tab.
The Business Intelligence|Search page appears.

18.Search for and select your organization's Default Customer Search list.
The Business Intelligence|Results page appears.

19.Select the Filters tab.
The Business Intelligence|Filters page appears.
Select Contacts from the pick filter group box.
A list of options appears.

20.Select Contact Type.

21.Select the following criteria in the set filter section:

a.Condition: Does not equal

b.Value: hide (or the contact type that you just created)

22.Click 'Add Filter'.
The filter is added to the current filter section.

23.Select the Results tab.
The Business intelligence|Results page appears.

24.Click 'Apply'.

When the BI is reloaded (click the 'Reload' button on the Customer|Search page) the duplicate contacts will no longer be visible.