Hi, new to Tessitura as of December last year, though not new to databases.
We have a huge amount of duplicates, which seem to mostly be the result of donors logging in to buy tickets and setting up new records for themselves. Today I came across a record of a man who apparently has four daughters named Ruby! Each time new tickets (for classes in this case) have been booked, a new record is set up.
I know how to merge duplicates. My question is more around best practice in catching these and fixing as they come up, and also if anyone can shed any light as to why this happens and if we can do anything from the ticketing side to prevent it??
Any thoughts gratefully received.
Hello, Stephanie,
Tessitura does have some procedures to identify potential duplicates for you to confirm and schedule the merges. However, this identification process was halted by request from someone in your organization in 2013 in order to work on a large backlog of duplicates and never re-enabled. If you'd like to revisit how that process works and potentially re-enable it, please open a support help ticket and we'll be happy to review it with you.
It'd also be helpful to review the help system topic on Duplicate Management, which includes some best practices suggestions.
TNEW generally shouldn't permit a duplicate login with the same address and login type. Instead, it should direct the patron to the account management page to retrieve their login info. The duplicates you're seeing may be the result of guest checkout or an educational customization that's building the customer records.
Thanks Brian, that's really helpful to know. I will open a support help ticket to review this option for sure!