Review these considerations before merging duplicate account records.
| Available in: Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic |
|
Business accounts available in: All Editions except
Database.com
Person accounts available in: Professional,
Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer
Editions
|
Merging Duplicate Accounts: Tips and
Gotchas (Salesforce Classic)
General
| Account Hierarchy |
In Lightning Experience, you can select which account to retain as the
principal record. In Salesforce Classic, the merged account retains the account
hierarchy from the principal record. |
| Brands |
When accounts containing brands are merged, the brand associated with the
principal account is retained. Brands associated with non-principal accounts are
moved to the Recycle Bin, even if there’s no brand associated with the remaining
principal account. |
| Divisions |
If divisions are enabled, the merged account is assigned to the division from
the principal record unless you select otherwise. |
| Hidden and Read-Only Fields |
Salesforce retains any data in hidden or read-only fields, such as sharing
settings, from the principal record. Hidden fields aren't shown while you merge. A
merged record retains the Created By user and Created Date from the oldest record
merged, regardless of which record is the principal. The record shows the merge date
as the Last Modified By date. |
| Mobile Device Support |
You can't use the Salesforce mobile app to
merge duplicate accounts.
|
| Non-Principal Accounts |
The non-principal accounts are moved to the Recycle Bin. |
| Redundant Relationships |
If you try to merge accounts that are indirectly related to the same contact,
Salesforce displays a message suggesting that you remove the redundant relationships. On
account records, indirect relationships are managed from the Related Contacts related
list. |
| Related Items, Chatter Feeds, and Attachments |
When duplicate records are related to items such as campaigns or activities,
Salesforce relates the items to the merged record, with some exceptions. Chatter
feeds are retained from the principal record only. Salesforce Files attached in the
Chatter feed or in the Files related list are retained in the merged record. |
| Relationship Groups |
Lightning Experience doesn't support merging of accounts associated with relationship
groups. |
| Sharing Rules |
In Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, Performance, or Developer Edition orgs,
sharing rules are applied to the merged account. Also, manual sharing from the
principal record is applied to the merged account. |
Team Members
| Permission to Merge on Teams |
To merge accounts to which a team member has greater record level access, you
must have the Modify All Data permission on accounts. For example, suppose that
you're the account owner but an account team member has more access on one or more
child account records. To merge those accounts, you need the Modify All Data
permission. |
| Team Members from Non-Principal Accounts |
The merged account retains all the team members from non-principal accounts, even if
the members are from different teams.
You can only merge accounts when team members from non-principal accounts have no
values in unique custom fields. Before merging, either remove the unique flag from
any custom fields, or clear any values from unique custom fields on the team
member accounts.
|
Person Accounts
| Contact Point Objects |
Contact point objects don't support merging. Relationships between contact
point objects and person accounts are lost after a merge. |
| Customer-Enabled Person Accounts |
When merging a customer-enabled person account with a person account that isn't
customer-enabled, the customer-enabled account must be the principal record. |
| Person Accounts and Business Accounts in Salesforce Classic |
In Salesforce Classic, if person accounts are enabled in your org, both
business accounts and person accounts are returned when you search for duplicates.
However, you can't merge a person account with a business account or the opposite.
Person accounts show the person account icon ( ). |
| Portal Support |
You can't merge person accounts that are enabled to use portal
or Experience Cloud site users.
|
| Redundant Relationships |
In Salesforce Classic, if you try to merge person accounts that are indirectly related
to the same contact or account, Salesforce displays a message suggesting you remove the
redundant relationships. Indirect relationships with accounts and indirect relationships
with contacts are evaluated separately. If you have conflicts with both, you must
resolve them separately. |
Experience Cloud Sites
| Contacts Associated with Multiple Experience Cloud Sites |
When you merge accounts that have contacts associated with multiple sites of the
same type, a contact's access to a specific site doesn't change. A site user's
profile determines the site that they can access.
If two person accounts are merged and the profile for each account grants access
to different sites, the resulting account can only access the principal account's
site.
|
| Experience Cloud Site Type |
When you merge accounts that have contacts associated
with a site, the contacts must belong to the same type of site.
|
| Including Site-Associated Contacts in Merged Record |
To ensure that the merged account includes
contacts associated with a site, select the account with site users as the
principal record.
|
| Partner Accounts |
When you merge a non-partner account with a partner account, the partner account
must be selected as the principal record.
When you merge a partner account with a non-partner account, the owner can't be
changed.
|
| Permission |
To merge accounts associated with sites, you must have the
Manage External Users permission. You also need permissions to delete accounts and
edit related records such as opportunities and contacts.
|
| Partner Accounts |
When you merge a non-partner account with a partner account, the partner account must
be selected as the principal record.
When you merge a partner account with a non-partner account, the owner can't be
changed.
|
Enterprise Territory Management
- If a territory was manually assigned to one of the merged accounts (for models in all
states), the territory is manually added to the merged account.
- Account assignment rules run on the merged account for the active territory model only
if you select Default for the Evaluate this account
against territory rules on save checkbox on the applicable account page
layout's layout properties.
- If the merged value of Exclude from territory assignment rules =
true, then:
- Territory assignment rules aren't evaluated even if the
Default checkbox for the Evaluate this account
against territory rules on save checkbox is selected on the applicable
account page layout's layout properties.
- Existing rule-based territory associations in the active model are removed from the
merged account.
- For territory models in non-active states (Planning or
Archived), rule-based associated territories don't change
on the merged account. This is true even if the merged account field values don't match
the rules.
