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.
Stephanie,
We are also on TNEW and see a lot of duplicates for the same reason! One of the ways we try to catch them early is through the New Record Summary report under Data Management. I set up a schedule for the report to run everyday and then our data entry coordinator checks it and merges any dupe records. It doesn't take long to do, a couple minutes each day and it keeps from adding to the back log.
I don't really have any advice on how to stop them or how to prevent them, Brian Pedaci pointed you to good practices, but its just a part of database life. One of the things you can do is train anyone entering records to do a through search before adding a new record. We tell our front line people to search for names, addresses, and emails before adding a new record. Online is a little harder to manage, which is where the new record summary report comes in handy.
Melissa
Thanks Melissa, that's great advice! I will look into setting up that New Record Summary report!