When you initiate a Profile import from an Excel spreadsheet, the data is reviewed and checked for any duplicate profiles already in your database. The system looks for duplicates based on the following criteria:
- An exact match on the Profile ID field in the spreadsheet, if that data is available
- Profile Sort Name match to Organization Name for organizations
- Profile First Name and Last Name match to Individual first/last name for individuals
- Exact Address match if "Include Address Fields in Duplicate Checking" is selected on the Import screen.
If a potential match is found, it is displayed in a window for your review. For each row that contained a potential duplicate, you have three options.
- Create a new profile using the data in the Import, indicating that the match is just multiple instances of the same name/address/etc. This will not affect the existing profile in any way, and create a completely new profile from the Excel data. This is the option selected by default if the match was on name/email/address only - UNLESS you selected to explicitly "set all potential duplicates to overwrite profile by default" which will instead select the overwrite option for the first potential duplicate:
- Overwrite the profile that was found as a potential duplicate. This option will be selected by default if the match is on Profile ID. If multiple duplicates were found, select the correct profile from the dropdown. ALL profile data will be overwritten from the Excel spreadsheet, replacing the previous value. If the spreadsheet value is blank, the profile data for that field will not be deleted (will not be overwritten with blank data).
- Ignore the potential duplicate, which will not update the existing profile and will not create any new profile for that row. This selection is never checked by default, you need to check it if you want to skip this row during the import.
Once you have reviewed and configured the settings for each potential duplicate, click Import to launch the import process.