What is 'duplicate resolution' and why is it important?
Our Membership Management system identifies any possible duplicate members caused by the double-entry of an individual's membership record. For example, if an administrator creates a new member record for a player that has just joined their association/ club, but that player has previously played within a different association/ club, Membership will identify this and allow the administrator to 'merge' the player's new record with all of their historical data.
This prevents the creation of multiple member records for the same person, and provides other important benefits:
- Governing bodies get accurate participation reports (no duplicate records)
- A complete statistical history of the player's career is built
- Clubs can see where their members have played/ coached/ officiated previously
- Leagues can see the tribunal history for new members
What exactly is a Duplicate?
Membership checks for duplicate member records each time a new member is created. When a new member record is created, the system automatically checks all existing member records (within the same sport) based on three fields:
- Legal first name
- Family name
- Date of birth
Who sees and resolves duplicates?
If Membership finds a match based on these three fields, the association that the new record has been added to is alerted of the possible duplicate and asked to 'resolve' the duplicate. For example, if a member already exists in 'Association A' and a matching record is added by 'Association B', the duplicate needs to be resolved by Association B. Association A is not required (or able) to play any part in resolving the duplicate record.
A notice will appear on the association's 'dashboard' altering the administrator of the need to resolve a possible duplicate. While duplicate resolution can only be completed by associations (the process can not be performed by clubs), clubs can mark member records as 'possible duplicates' for the association to resolve.
It is important that duplicates are resolved as quickly as possible, as if the two different member records are being used by two different clubs/ associations, it will start accumulating the individual's participation data across two separate records. Some functions cannot be performed on a member who is flagged as a possible duplicate until the duplicate is resolved.
What happens to the duplicate records once they are resolved?
Regardless of which option is chosen, the original (existing) member record will never be deleted. The same member record will belong to two different locations (i.e. different clubs and associations), and the Membership system will continue to add player statistics from both locations to the one member record.
The first two duplicate resolution options ('This is the same person - merge using new data' and 'This is the same person - keep existing data') simply ensures that the most up-to-date information is used when merging the two records into one. The personal/contact information from the most up-to-date record will replace the personal/contact information in the other record. Other information from both records will be retained and consolidated into a single record - e.g. match statistics, career statistics, registration information, member type information.
The third option ('This is a new person') will not merge the two records into one. Instead, the two member records will remain completely separate with their own unique sets of data/ information.
Related Topics:
Resolving Duplicates
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