Configure Contact Matching Overview
Contact Matching allows you to create a rule to determine under what conditions a new Individual contact should be flagged as a potential duplicate of an existing record. These rules are called Contact Matching Rules.
- The default Contact Matching Rule compares Email Address AND First Name AND Last Name to find matches.
- CONTACT MATCHING rules are activated upon entering a new individual contact, updating an existing contact, and importing contacts with the Import Wizard.
Configure Contact Matching
To configure contact matching, begin at the Administer CiviCRM page.
In the Configure section, choose Contact Matching.
Click Edit Rule to modify the set of fields used for identifying matches.
You can select up to five contact fields to use when comparing a new Individual contact to existing contact records.
If some of the fields listed in your Contact Matching Rule are OPTIONAL ( vs. REQUIRED), then all non-empty fields in the new record you are entering are used.
For example, Jane Doe with email address jane.doe@example.org exists in your database. Using the default Contact Matching Rule of Email AND First Name AND Last Name, when someone tries to add a new contact with the same email address and leaves the first and last name blank, the new contact will be flagged as a potential match.
If you enter a new contact and a match is found, when you click SAVE, you will see the error message:
Please correct the following errors in the form fields below:
- One matching contact was found. You can edit it here: Contact Name, or click Save Matching Contact button below.
You can then view or edit the existing record, or choose to Save the matching contact.
 | Be careful when saving matching contacts that you are truly entering information for a different person. Adding duplicate individuals can cause confusion and errors in reporting. |
