Editorial draft available to read. Factual and language review is pending. Examples are illustrative.
Decision and method
Agree what identifies an entity and which fields merely suggest similarity. A similar name is insufficient grounds for merging records. Separate exact matches, possible duplicates and new entries. Preserve source references and decisions so the outcome can be reviewed without losing information from the original datasets.
Illustrative example
Illustrative example: two contacts share a reception email address but represent different people. Mark them for review rather than merging them. Conversely, the same external identifier repeated in two files may update one existing entity according to an agreed priority rule for conflicting field values.
Acceptance check
Run a trial import and compare created, updated, skipped and pending records. Importing the same file again should not multiply entities. Inspect a sample of conflicts and retain a report explaining which value prevailed and why before proceeding with the complete production data load.
Key takeaways
- Importing requires identity and review rules rather than automatic merging based on superficial similarity.