Merging duplicate users

One person, two records. Three conditions decide whether you can merge them at all, and the merge cannot be undone.

One person, two records. Merging brings their history back together, and three conditions decide whether you can do it at all: both records have to be end users, each with fewer than 10,000 tickets, and it cannot be undone.

Merge them

1. Decide which record survives: usually the one with the correct primary address and the organisation already set.
2. Open that record and merge the other one into it.
3. Confirm with Confirm and Merge, then check the tickets moved across. Closing the window without clicking it cancels the merge, which is the way out if you picked the wrong survivor.

Get the survivor the wrong way round and you are fixing the primary address afterwards.

What the merge keeps, and what it throws away

The merged record contributes its tickets and email identities, and nothing else. Its tags, notes and user fields are removed.

So look at the record you are about to merge away before you do it. A note explaining this customer's contract, or a custom field somebody filled in, does not survive, and there is no unmerge to recover it. Copy anything worth keeping onto the surviving record first.

The ticket moves show in the event log as a requester change, and they do not cause triggers to fire, so a merge does not set off your routing rules.

Two cases where it will not work

One of them is an agent. Merging only works between end users, which is exactly the awkward case: a colleague who emailed support before becoming an agent. That one cannot be merged as it stands.

Single sign-on with an external ID. Where you authenticate with JWT or SAML, you can merge only if the record being merged away has no external ID associated with it.

How duplicates happen

• A customer writing from work and from home.
• An import that did not match on existing addresses.
• A slightly different spelling of the same address.

Check you have the right two records before confirming, particularly with common names. Two different people merged together is a genuine mess, and there is no unmerge.

See also

• Error: this email is already taken
• How do I add a second email address to a user
• Adding and managing end users