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10.3.  Merge Accounts

If you are importing customer or vendor or any other account information—either through the xTuple Web Portal or some other feature—it's possible you will encounter duplicate account records. It's also possible to create overlapping or duplicate account records manually by mistake. The Merge Accounts utility is a wizard designed to help you resolve this scenario. Using the Merge Accounts utility, you can easily locate duplicate records and merge them into one single account record.

Tip

For practical information about how the Merge Accounts utility can be used during an upgrade process, please see the following article posted on our community website here: http://www.xtuple.org/node/4479.

To begin using the Merge Accounts utility, go to CRM > Utilities > Merge Accounts. The following screen will appear:

Identify merge tasks

Upon first opening the Merge Accounts utility, you are presented with the following options:

Start a new merge

Select to begin a new merge process.

Continue an existing merge

Select to continue working on a merge that you have already started by not yet completed. Because you may have multiple merges in process at the same time, be sure to select the correct merge from the drop-down list.

After specifying a task to perform, select the NEXT button to reach the next step. The following screenshot shows the second step for creating a new merge:

Select the accounts to merge

When starting a new merge, you need to identify the accounts you want to merge. You are presented with the following options:

Filter

Select a filter from the list of available filters, then select the QUERY button to generate search results. Only saved filters will appear in this list.

MORE

Select this button to show the parameters underlying the saved filter. To hide the parameters, click the MORE button a second time.

Query Builder

When building a custom query, you have the following options:

+

Select to add a new parameter to the query.

-

Select to remove a parameter from the query. This option is disabled for default parameters.

SAVE

Select to save your filter for future use. Saved filters will appear in the list of available filters.

MANAGE

Select to manage your saved filters. To learn more about managing filters, please see Section 2.1.2, “Search Filters”.

QUERY

Select to refresh the account data after filters have been changed.

Accounts to Merge

Displays the list of accounts found in your system. By using your mouse, you can click on accounts to specify which ones you want to merge. The accounts you select will appear in the Destination Account drop-down list.

Destination Account

After the accounts have been selected, specify which of the accounts is the target or destination account. Information from the other selected account(s) will be merged into the destination account.

Once you've selected accounts to merge, select the NEXT button to reach the next step. The following screenshot shows the next step once you've identified accounts to merge:

Confirm merge details

The next step is to pick which details you want to add to the target account from the source account(s). When merging specific data elements, you are presented with the following options:

Merge Accounts

Displays the accounts you want to merge. Any information displayed in blue will be added to the target account. Only the target account will be remaining after the merge. You can right-click on the account rows to view or edit the account information. Since the final result can only contain one piece of information per column, only one item in each column can be selected and blue.

COMMIT

Select to save the details you want to merge. At this stage, the merge is still in process. You may revisit the merge details and make changes later.

Once you click the COMMIT button, the Perform This Merge? warning will pop up asking if you're sure you want to perform the merge. Clicking YES will run the merge and all selected accounts will be merged into the target account.

Warning

Double-check your accounts before you merge, because this action cannot be undone.

Perform merge warning

Once you select the COMMIT button, you will be shown a preview of your merge results, as shown below:

Result of Merge

The Result of Merge screen shows a summary of the current target account and what elements were added from the source account(s). The source account(s) are now purged and are no longer in the database.