How to Clean Up Duplicate Relationships

Managing duplicate records is one of those database housekeeping tasks that's easy to put off, but MonkeyPod's duplicate detection tools make it much easier to stay on top of. Use these tools to merge duplicate relationships, group people into households, or just review a list of potential duplicates.

Where can I find the duplicate management tools?

To locate the duplicate management tools, select Relationships > Manage Duplicates in the main menu.

You'll land on the Duplicate Detection page, which has three tabs:

• Possible Duplicates (Classic): Review a list of relationships that share the same email address, the same name, or the same first initial and last name, and manually manage the cleanup decisions.
• Possible Duplicates (Advanced)✨: AI-powered duplicate suggestions that go beyond name and email matching to catch less obvious duplicates.
• Possible Households: Relationships that share an organization name or website and may belong together as a household rather than being full duplicates.

Possible Duplicates (Classic)

The Classic tab groups relationships by the matching element (like a shared email address or name) and shows how many relationships match each one.

Click any group to expand it and see the individual records where you can compare details like the full name, email address, when they were created, and by whom. If you're not sure whether two people are actually the same, or you need more detail to investigate, click the name to open their full record in a new tab.

For each cluster of duplicates, one will be shown as the Primary relationship—this is the one that will remain after any merges. This is typically who you would consider as the primary household contact, or the primary record for a business. For any non-primary relationship, you have the choice to:

• Set as primary: Designates the selected record as the one to keep. The oldest record is set as primary by default.
• Merge into primary: Merges selected records into whichever record is set as primary.
• Household under primary: Households selected records under the primary record, for example if this is a spouse or child of the primary membership, or if it's an employee of the company.
• Confirm as unique: Removes the selected records from the duplicates list.
• Skip for now: Dismisses the selection without taking action—you can come back and decide later.

After making a choice for each non-primary relationship in the set, select Process Batch and your changes will be applied. You'll be asked to confirm any merges before anything is processed (see below for details.)

You can also use the handle icon to the right of the name to grab and drag an individual relationship on to the boxes for Merge into or Add to household.

Confirming merged relationship details

When you initiate a merge, you'll see the merge form showing which record will remain and which will be absorbed. Merging records is permanent and cannot be undone. Take a moment to double-check before you confirm.

You'll be asked to choose the surviving information for fields like name, email address, and physical address. Any addresses or emails you don't choose as the primary will be retained as alternates on the surviving record.

Email list subscriptions: During the merge, you'll also have a choice for how to handle email list subscriptions. Regardless of your selection, the same email cannot be subscribed to the same list more than once, and MonkeyPod will always honor unsubscribes, spam reports, the "Do Not Email" flag, and any blocklisted addresses, so you cannot resubscribe someone to a list they should not be on.

• Automatically (default): MonkeyPod uses its standard logic to determine which subscriptions carry over.
• Manually: You can review the available email lists and choose which ones the surviving record should be subscribed to. Smart Lists are always handled automatically regardless of this setting.

Possible Duplicates (Advanced) ✨

The Advanced tab uses AI to identify duplicate candidates that the classic matching logic might miss — for example, records where a name is spelled differently, a nickname is used, or data was entered inconsistently.

Enabling this feature: The first time you visit the Advanced tab, you'll see an opt-in prompt explaining that this is an experimental feature and confirming that your data stays completely private — MonkeyPod's AI models are never trained on or fine-tuned using your information. Click Sounds Good to enable it for your organization. This is a one-time approval. Once enabled, MonkeyPod will analyze your relationships and surface its best guesses for review.

The Advanced tab works the same way as the Classic tab described above: records are grouped by entity, and you can merge, household, skip, or confirm them as unique. In addition, the Advanced tab includes a confidence rating on how likely they are to be true duplicates. Click the rating (or the info icon) to see why they're listed as duplicates to help you make your decision.

Possible Households

The Possible Households tab looks for relationships that share an organization name or website and may belong together as a household, rather than being outright duplicates. For example, two contacts who both list "Smith Family Foundation" as their organization might not need to be merged, but could be householded together as part of the same foundation.

Click the name of a possible household in the list to see the candidates for inclusion. At the top of the panel, you'll find an option to change the primary household relationship, if needed. The primary relationship should be the main contact for the organization.

After confirming the primary relationship, work your way down the list deciding whether each is a match or not, or whether you want to skip it and defer making a decision. You can also drag and drop individual relationships to be part of another household here. (You can have multiple levels in one household if needed.)

Select the Process Batch button when you've finished recording your decisions, and your MonkeyPod will update the relationships in that set.

How to find a specific relationship in the list of duplicates

All three tabs include a Filter by name or email field at the top of the page. Enter the name or email address you're looking for to filter the list down to relevant matches.   

How to export the duplicates list

If you want to review your duplicates in a spreadsheet, or share the list with a colleague who doesn't use MonkeyPod, click the Export button at the top of any tab. MonkeyPod will prepare a CSV file and email it to you when it's ready. The export includes each relationship's full name, the possible match, organization name, email address, and when and by whom the record was created.

Other tips for managing relationships as you work

Merging relationships directly from the relationship page

When viewing any relationship, select Merge a Relationship from the actions menu on the left side of the page. This lets you manually initiate a merge with any other relationship in your MonkeyPod.

Preventing duplicates during data entry

To help prevent duplicates before they happen, MonkeyPod checks for potential matches as you fill out the Create Relationship form. If a name or email address you enter looks similar to an existing record, you'll see a warning at the bottom of the form: "Heads up! This looks like it might be a duplicate of an existing relationship." Candidate matches will be listed with links so you can review them before saving.