[AprilArchambault]

Greetings Fellow RE Users/Earthlings,

I come in peace to try and solve this annoying problem to do with duplicates being found in the alias field. ;-) I've been doing a crapload of imports lately, but I've been getting exceptions found based on various names in the constituent alias field. It seems to pull out duplicates based on this field even if they only have 3 letters in common with the first or last name of a constituent I'm trying to import.

For example: If I'm trying to import the constituent "Elvis Presley", but someone else in the system has the name "elvis" as an alias--it won't let me import it without showing up as an exception.

Is there any way around this? Its driving me nuts.

[Jo Ward]

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilArchambault

Greetings Fellow RE Users/Earthlings,

I come in peace to try and solve this annoying problem to do with duplicates being found in the alias field. ;-) I've been doing a crapload of imports lately, but I've been getting exceptions found based on various names in the constituent alias field. It seems to pull out duplicates based on this field even if they only have 3 letters in common with the first or last name of a constituent I'm trying to import.

For example: If I'm trying to import the constituent "Elvis Presley", but someone else in the system has the name "elvis" as an alias--it won't let me import it without showing up as an exception.

Is there any way around this? Its driving me nuts.

April,

In your Business Rules, check the duplicate criteria for individuals. At the bottom of the screen (you may need to scroll down to see it) there is a box marked "Check aliases". If this is checked, you will get things like you are mentioning. If you uncheck it, you will get results that are more like what you are expecting.

Jo

[AprilArchambault]

Hi Jo,

Thanks so much for your reply. I feel like a big "duh" is in order on my part...but thanks nonetheless!!

[Jo Ward]

No problem, April. I've always thought the check aliases box is poorly designed. To me, it is totally useless because I get so many potential duplicates that have no possibility of being the same person! It would be nice to be able to have a feature such as that, but one that actually works properly. According to Blackbaud, it is working as intended.

[AprilArchambault]

Riiighhht...there can be so many definitions for "working as intended". haha.... oh well!