Merging duplicate person records

If two records have been created for the same person in error, it is possible to merge them using Merge and Delete, providing you have the relevant permissions to do so and the merge prevention reasons listed below do not apply. Merging records should be carried out with caution as this action cannot be undone.

Find and display the person Summary for the person whose record you wish to merge into the correct Person record. This is the Source Person.
Select Merge and Delete from the File Management side menu to display the Find Person dialog.
Search for and select the correct person record. This is the Target Person.

The Merge and Delete Person dialog will be displayed showing a summary of the Source Person and Target Person records enabling you to check the details that are to be automatically merged. Some details must be moved manually from the Source Person to the Target Person before merging the records if the information is to be retained, such as Address. If required, please see the full lists of data:

Data to be moved manually

The following data will not be merged to the Target Person. If any of this data needs to be maintained, it should be manually applied to the target person prior to merging.
The Target Person record should also be reviewed to ensure the details below will accurately represent the merged records following the merge.

📌 Note: Case history entries relating to the source person will not be transferred to the target person's case history as part of the person merge.

Area	Data
Basic Details	Title First Name Last Name Date of Birth Age Gender Context Ethnicity Sub Ethnicity First language Interpreter Needed Fluency In English Religion Practising Nationality Country of Birth Marital Status
Addresses	Primary Address Is Display Address Address Type From To Household Structure Tenure Type Access Notes Address Is Display Address Address Type From To Household Structure Tenure Type Access Notes
email Address	[email protected]
Classes	Class
Other Names	Title First Name Last Name Name Type From To
Date of Death	dd/mm/yyyy
GP	GP Name From To End Reason
Organisation Relationships	Organisation Relationship Type From To End Reason
Worker Relationships	Organisation Relationship Type From To End reason
Employment Status	Status Start date End date
References	Reference Type Reference Number
Service User Groups	Group Sub Group From To Is Primary?
Education, Position after Year 11	Position at the end of September following Year 11
Health, Development Assessments	Assessment Type Assessment Date
Health, Immunisations	Immunisation Type Age in Years Age in Months
Health, Dental Visits	Date Notes
Health, Health Assessments	Date Requested Assessment Date Next Assessment Due Date Notes Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire completed (Y/N/NA) Score Reason for not completing
Health Conditions/Disabilities	Condition/disability Age diagnosed Applicable
Health, Hospital Stays	Admission Date Departure Date Hospital Consultant Reason
Health, Illnesses	Illness Age Contracted
Looked after, Episodes, Placements	From Date To Date Category of Need Placement Code Reason Episode Ceased Local End Reason
Looked after, Care Leavers	Birthday Date In Touch on Birthday Main Activity Type of Accommodation Suitable Accommodation (Y/N)
Legal Status	From Date To Date Legal Status Notes
Offences	Offence Type Date of Offence Details of Offence Type of Outcome Details of Outcome Date of Outcome Issuing Court/Police Station
Carer Data, Carer Household Data, Household	Household Member Name Household Member ID Start Date End date Fostering network membership required
Carer Data, Carer Household Data, Carer	EDT Contact allowed Extra Contact Number Notes
Carer Data, Carer Approval Data, Carer Type	Carer Type Second Carer Name Second Carer ID Max Placements Can Care for Disabled Person Application Date Approval Date Status Ceased Date Ceased Reason Named Team Named Worker Religions (multiple) Ethnicities (multiple) Languages (multiple) Notes Care Type Gender Spaces Age From Age To Start Date End Date Specific Person Name Specific Person ID Notes Payment Scheme Start Date End Date
Carer Data, Periods of Unavailability	Unavailability Type Reason Other Reasons Number of Spaces From Date To Date Notes
Financial Assessment Results	Assessment Type Planned Amount Maximum Amount Valid From Valid To Assessor (Worker or Organisation) Assessed on Note
File Management, File Location	File Type Location From Date To date Primary Location Details
File Management, File Retention	File Retention Criteria Retention Start Date Retain Until Date Notes

Data that is merged automatically

Data	Notes
Case Notes
Person Notes
Steps	All workflow steps are merged from the source to target person.
Forms	Both forms completed within workflow steps and forms outside of workflow will be merged from source to target person.
Documents	Document attachments are merged from source to target person.
Care Packages
Visits
Child Protection Enquiries
Child Protection Registrations	Child protection registration data is merged from source to target, no other registration types are migrated.
Chronologies	The manual update and automatic merge processes will create CHRONOLOGY_EVENTS on the target person. This suggests that we may not want to merge CHRONOLOGY_EVENTS, however, CHRONOLOGY_SELECTED_EVENTS and CHRONOLOGY_FINISHED_EVENTS which are required in order to merge incomplete and completed chronologies contain CHRONOLOGY_EVENT_ID.
Case chronologies	Case chronologies will be merged to the target person in a way that maintains chronological order.
Alerts History
Education Data	Education data is migrated from source to target person, including data such as exclusions and special education needs.
Relationship Data	Where the source and target person are related to the same person, this should be tidied up before or after the merge manually.

You then have the following options:

Click Save on the toolbar to save the merge, it can then be scheduled to be merged at a later time.
Click Schedule on the toolbar to submit for merging when your administrator next runs, or schedules, the merge process.
Click Delete on the toolbar to delete the merge. The two original person records will remain.
Click Search on the toolbar to search for and select a different target person.

If Save or Schedule is selected, validation checks will be performed.
If the merge passes the validation checks, the Source Person summary page will display a warning to advise that the record is a duplicate and the the Target Person ID will be displayed.

If the merge fails validation checks, the reason will be displayed in Record Counts, Validation.

A merge cannot be performed if:

Either person is currently subject to pending merges.
Both people have child protection plans which will overlap.
The source person has a carer approval.
The source person is an allocated party in care package for another person.
The source person has a budget care package of a type that conflicts with the target person.
Either person has an incomplete personal budget.
The source person has a finance assessment of a type that conflicts with the target person.
The source person is an allocated party in an existing service.
The source person is an allocated party in a service change.
Both people have incomplete changes for the same package type.
The source person has invoices.
The source person is an invoice payee.
The source person is an invoice payer.
The source person is a creditor invoice payee.
The source person has charge periods.
The source person is allocated element changes.
The source person has delivered actuals.
The source person is a payee on one or more remittance advices.
The source person is within their retention period.
The source person is already a household member of target person.
The source person has a saved chronology used in a form.
The source and target people both have Education records, such as exclusions and activities.
Worker/organisation restrictions differ between source and target persons.

Records will need to be manually amended before the merge can proceed.

📌 Note: Case History Events won't be transferred to the target record during the person merge and will be deleted from the source person record. There is no way to manually update the case history with these events before or after the merge and they will be no longer listed on the Case History.

After the merge has completed, an Other References widget is added to the target person's summary showing Merged from person: personID.

You can view a Merge History page from the target person's File Management, Merge History menu item. The page shows the ID of the Source Person, the name and ID of the worker that scheduled the merge, and the date that the merge took place.

For cases where a merge has failed due to a finance specific error, you can find further information in the following knowledge article: Merge Person has failed because of a Finance error

Advice when person merge is prevented

Merge Person has failed due to a Finance error

Missing data after merging two people’s records

Error: 'Merge Person has failed validation because Person 816581 has Delivered Actuals'

Unable to merge as a person has invoices

Data to be moved manually

Area

Data

Data that is merged automatically

Data

Notes