Merged two records on accident

Mindy Flenniken

I'm unable to log in to start a chat as I get the message "additional permissions needed for this page".  I need to undo a merge of two records I did a few days ago.  I found an article with the following:

1. Go to Data Management > select Duplicate Management
2. Select the Duplicate Merge Undo Management tab

However, I don't have that option in Blackbaud.  Is there anything else that can be done?

Austen Brown

Hi Mindy Flenniken‍ - Once you merge two constituents, this cannot be easily undone (KB Article #51376).  You will need to either recreate the deleted (merged) record manually or you will likely have to restore your system from a backup.  Go to KB Article #43118 and navigate to the section that relates to your organization for additional instructions on the later option.  There are pros and cons to each method - choose the option that works best for you and your organization.  Considering this merge happened a few days ago, I would recommend you either find a way to reinstate the two records without resetting from a back-up or manually recreate the deleted (merged) record; a complete backup will write over any additions/changes that have been made in your system since the merge occurred.  


Get in contact with you BB Account Rep and see if they can help you get in touch with support.  Good luck.

Alan French

Was it this article you found? Unfortunately that only applies to Luminate Online, not Raiser's Edge (applicable products are listed under the article number on the right hand side of Knowledgebase articles)


A few years ago we had to un-merge a father and son (same name, same address!) and while we did have to do some of it manually, some of it could be done by import. For example I exported all the actions to Excel, deleted the ones that were originally from the surviving record and re-imported the rest onto the replacement record we created for the son.

Karen Hartt

Hi Mindy,

Do you have a backup? Do you have an IT department that can open the backup in a test server? If yes to these the IT department can take screen shots of the full record and you can re-create the missing data. Or, you could restore to that date, but you'll lose any work done since the backup.


I deleted a very large record several years ago, my IT department was able to do the screen shots and I could fix my error as it had been a week of new data.


I hope this helps.


 

Catherine Burns

Hi Mindy. I confess I have occasionally done this too! Sorting it out has got easier if you have NXT as you can now edit the constituent matched to a particular gift in webview. This saves recreating and deleting gifts to move them back to the right records. Supervisors can also edit ID numbers. If you can't get help from IT, then if you participate in any bench marking you may have external data files of gifts and their associated constituent ID numbers to refer to to make sure you get the right gifts back on the right records.

suzie deaves

I have done this - easiest way I found was to restore an appropriate copy of the data base before the merge to our test database and corrected using this data...