Duplicate Records in Altru

When patrons renew their memberships online or register for programs and enter new information without signing in, the system might create a duplicate record for them.

Identifying duplicate records

• When you search the person’s name, their name shows up twice with different Lookup IDs but matching contact information, it could be a duplicate
• When you go to a member’s page and the profile is new but the Member paid a renewal price (for example, $58.50 is a discounted renewal for a $65 membership), it’s likely a duplicate

Merging duplicate records

Once you have verified that a record is a duplicate, the duplicate records must be merged:

1. Go to the Constituents tab at the top of the Altru page
2. Click Duplicates (under the Maintenance header)
3. Click Merge Two Constituents
4. Enter and select the lookup ID for the Source Constituent – typically, you will want this to be the newest of the two records, so that the member ID number on the membership cards won’t be affected by the merge
5. Enter and select the lookup ID for the Target Constituent – this is the record that will be updated, so you will typically choose the older record for the Target, to maintain the membership card ID number
6. Select Default Configuration for the Merge Configuration
7. Check the Delete Source Constituent Box – this will delete the duplicate record, once the information has been moved to the merged record
8. Hit Merge

After you’ve merged the records, do some data checking and clean-up. Look for the following errors:

1. Name formats (for primary and spouse).
2. Membership expiration date. Altru might default back to the current month, so see if they paid the renewal price, and, if so, update the expiration date so they get their two extra months from the original expiration date. Make sure the expiration date and the date shown on the member cards match.
3. Double check contact information. If the duplicate was created because the member has updated contact information, check it for formatting errors and set the new information as the primary contact information.

Note: If the member has created a login and is signed in for the transaction, Altru will automatically link the “new” information to the original member record. This is a good reason to encourage members to create and use their logins when renewing, registering for events, etc.