When viewing or adding additional information to a contact record in AVA (such as the Alleged Victim), you may be presented with the opportunity to merge the contact you are viewing with additional, existing contact records.
- With the contact record open, you may be presented the pop-up notification Similar Records Exist. Close this pop-up and save the record.
- At the top of the page, the notification It looks as if duplicates exist for the Contact. View Duplicates. will appear. Click on this notification.
- View Duplicates task field will appear witha list of contact records that are potentially the same.Contacts that are verified by same name, DOB , SSN and address may have the corresponding check boxes selected (A maximum of three contacts can be merged at one time only)
- Potential Duplicate Records task field will appear, stating Compare Contacts with the previously selected contact being aligned for comparison.
NOTE: Do not merge any unverified contacts! For example, verification is particularly necessary for Male contacts that may have very limited information, such as a name only. Multiple Males may have exactly the same name for multiple generations with AVA records not showing who is the Senior, Junior, or the III (the 3rd).
Merging records without verification may create substantial issues across multiple AVA referrals. - Confirm merge is the final step in merging the contact records, consolidating the information from multiple contact records into one. Again, be certain these are verified records as you will receive the final message: You’re about to merge theses contacts. You can’t undo merging.
- Clicking the Merge button now completes the process with merge of the record now completed.
