Time for some GoldMine Spring Cleaning with Merge/Purge

First, my apologies to readers in Africa, Oceania, and South America, for the “Northern Hemisphere-Centric” nature of the title!

But the tip will help you, whether you’re entering spring or fall!

I love Garrison Keillor’s quote, “God designed the month of March ‘to show people who don’t drink what a hangover feels like.’”

So, the spring season has now begun and, it’s time for some Spring cleaning on our GoldMine database!  Or, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere, you can do some fall cleaning as well.

Today’s tip is how to do a ‘Merge Purge on Tagged Records’.  When a merge/purge is done we combine two records into one.  Information on the contacts, details, referrals, history, links, opportunity, and project tabs will be combined into a single record.  For fields like contact, company, etc. the record we tag first will win.  If the first record tagged is missing information, say a fax number, but the second tagged record isn’t, the fax number will be populated in the surviving record.  This is my favorite method for removing duplicate records from my GoldMine!

First, we need to Tag two records.  This is done in the Contact Search Center by holding down the Control key and doing a Single-Left Click on the two records you want to merge together.

If you’re using GoldMine Premium Edition, we’ll still do this within the Search Center, but just click the check boxes to the two duplicates.

After tagging two records you’ll notice the title bar of your contact record will tell you that you have two tagged records.

… or in GoldMine Premium Edition

There is no undo after a merge/purge so be sure you have the correct two records tagged.  Check and Double-Check!

With the two records tagged choose Tools | Merge/Purge Records | Merge Tagged Records from the main menu.

Or in GoldMine Premium Edition choose Tools | Data Management| Merge/Purge Records  |Merge Tagged Records

GoldMine will warn you…

Click Yes to complete the Merge/Purge.

Happy GoldMining!