Auto-Merge takes the manual work out of duplicate cleanup by automatically merging duplicate records based on your defined rules and confidence thresholds. It's designed to handle high-volume deduplication safely while maintaining a complete audit trail for every merge.
When Auto-Merge runs, it processes duplicate groups identified by your rules and intelligently combines them into single, authoritative records. Here's what happens behind the scenes:
Only merges duplicates that meet your confidence threshold, ensuring high-quality matches are processed while questionable matches are left for manual review.
Automatically determines the master record based on your preference: most recently modified (default) or oldest record in the group.
Before any record is deleted, a comprehensive artifact is created containing all field values and relationship data for full recoverability.
Every auto-merge can be undone. Artifacts store everything needed to restore deleted records and reconstruct relationships.
When your duplicate rule uses fuzzy matching, each duplicate group receives a confidence score representing how closely the records match. This score is calculated based on the similarity of field values across your matching criteria.
Example: "John Smith" vs "Jon Smith" might score 92% confidence, while "John Smith" vs "J. Smithson" might score 68%. Auto-Merge lets you set the minimum confidence threshold—only groups meeting or exceeding this threshold will be automatically merged.
Rules using only exact matching will always show 100% confidence, as there's no variation in match quality.
When merging a duplicate group, one record is designated as the master (kept) and others are merged into it. You can configure which record becomes the master:
LastModifiedDate becomes the master. This prioritizes records that have been actively maintained and are likely to have the most current information.CreatedDate becomes the master. This preserves your original record of truth and is useful when historical continuity matters (e.g., maintaining the original account creation date for tenure tracking).Every time a record is deleted through Auto-Merge, Data Doctor creates a detailed merge artifact that captures:
Important Limitations: While the artifact system enables merge reversal, there are practical constraints to be aware of:
Best Practice: Review Auto-Merge results regularly, especially when first enabling the feature. Address any incorrect merges promptly—the sooner you undo a merge, the cleaner the restoration will be.
Auto-Merge can be configured to run automatically after your duplicate rule completes its scan. When enabled, it processes newly identified duplicates without manual intervention.
To enable scheduled Auto-Merge, toggle the Auto-Merge option when configuring your rule's schedule settings. You'll also set your confidence threshold and master record preference at this time.
You can trigger Auto-Merge on demand from two locations within Data Doctor:
View duplicate metrics for any object and run Auto-Merge across all rules for that object. Ideal for periodic bulk cleanup or when you want to process duplicates across multiple rules simultaneously.
Run Auto-Merge for a specific rule. Use this when you want targeted cleanup based on a particular matching strategy, or when testing a new rule's Auto-Merge configuration before enabling it on a schedule.
Tip: Before running Auto-Merge for the first time on a rule, consider doing a manual review of the identified duplicates to ensure your confidence threshold and matching logic are producing accurate results.
Child records (related lists, activities, etc.) from the deleted record are automatically re-parented to the master record. This ensures no data is orphaned during the merge process.
Yes. In the Duplicate Manager, you can mark specific duplicate groups as "Ignored." Ignored groups will be skipped by Auto-Merge even if they meet your confidence threshold.
Every Auto-Merge operation is logged in the Merge History, accessible from the Data Doctor dashboard. You can view which records were merged, when, by which rule, and access the artifact for each deleted record.
Need Help? If you have questions about configuring Auto-Merge settings or want guidance on setting appropriate confidence thresholds for your data, contact our support team.