New duplicate handling option in Integrations

We’ve just added a system override to allow you to send messages to "duplicate contacts" in our system. As you may know, a "duplicate" is any Integration profile  in PastorsLine (from CCB, PCP, etc.) that has the SAME phone number. If Jane Doe and John Doe share the same number, but Jane Doe is the primary contact in the Integration, then by default, she will be noted as the primary contact in PastorsLine.

The issue would be if John Doe (who isn't the primary contact), is added to a "men's" group in PastorsLine. When you send a message to that "men's" group, John would not receive that group message since we skip all records that are not the primary profile. 

The current solution involves manually overriding the primary contact in our system (see at the bottom).

This will still be an option, but what we have now included is an override that we will send the text message to John, even if he is not the primary contact. I think this will save you some time and hassle. 

FAQs about the Override

What if both Jane and John Doe are in the same group? Who gets the text?

Well, it does not matter as they share the same number. The issue arises if you use the merge field data. E.g. Dear [First Name]. The person who receive the text will see ‘Dear Jane’.

John Doe (not the primary contact) is in the men's group, but Jane (the primary contact) isn't. Who gets the text?

As mentioned above, the text will go to the mobile number. However in this case, if you use the first name merge field, [First Name], then the text will say, ‘Dear John’. 

What about if they use the data capture or process queues?

Basically, everything else will remain the same. The primary contact (Jane) is still the record that we would update if any changes are made using the data capture. You see, each profile in your Integration has a unique ID. Jane, being set as primary, means that she is the specific Integration ID we are going to update if that mobile number enters into a Data Capture.  

What about managing each profile in PastorsLine when logged in?

All the duplicate profiles are listed within PastorsLine. If you edit that specific record directly, you will see the specific data for that record. E.g. John. Jane and John’s personal profiles are displayed differently in our application. But Jane will be the default category if you are using any merge fields or the data capture campaigns. 


It’s no secret that most Integration users probably have tons of duplicate data within their applications. And once you sync that data with ours…well, we’ve most likely randomly selected one of the duplicates and discarded the others. (For us, duplicates are two or more Integration individuals who had the same phone number.)

Some of our ministry partners were concerned about sending text messages to a child or merging in the child’s name and sending a message that is going to be received by an adult. Many families may be assigned the same phone number during check-in as you might be aware.

What we did to attend to these issues was the following:

1.  We will import all contacts but choose the primary contact profile first; if none, then the spouse; if none, then we randomly pick a contact.

2.  You will be able to visually see the duplicates and switch which contact you want to be the primary contact for that number. 

3.  You can now know exactly which Integration profile you are working with by clicking on the specific Integration icon and opening the URL within your Integration Application in case you want to make edits.

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