Handling potential volunteer duplicates

Background

It is currently possible for a potential volunteer to be registered manually during a drop-in session (local volunteer) and then later to register on Do-it and be subsequently created in VBC as a duplicate, during the Import process.

It is also possible to manually create (by accident) a local volunteer duplicate (ie two local volunteers with the exact same details)  There is no control in VBC to prevent this.

There is control during import of a volunteer.  If the volunteer already exists in VBC (and was initially created by Do-it import), then only the application details will be imported into the existing volunteer. This check does not extend to checking for local volunteers.

Proposal (ref vcsheather)

When a new volunteer record is created in the database that has matching information in ANY of the following fields, a prompt is offered for "Do you want to create a new record, or add this information to one of the existing records which appears to match your criteria". You would then have 3 options: Merge, Create new Record, Cancel

Those essential criteria would be:

• First and Last Name (Yes, there may be a few John Smiths in there but I'm sure we'll cope)
• Email Address
• Telephone Number

So if a new local OR Do-it record is created with the same name OR Telephone number OR Email Address as any existing volunteer record then the system would offer up any records for comparison. Obviously this would then throw up any people using the same mobile or email address, but I don't necessarily think that's a problem as long as there is a way to work around it i.e. a cancel button.

I think probably the Merge idea is a separate functionality which would simply allow users to create an exact copy of one set of data into another record, and then archive the orphaned record. The key would be ensuring that data in the record receiving the merged fields was not overwritten, rather that the incoming data sits alongside it for review. Can't see a major issue with this as the system already supports multiple records in each contact field, but it may be more of an issue in the drop down fields where only one piece of information can be selected.

Comment (rtomalin)

I’m not entirely sure about the “merge” discussion above.  I think Heather may be over-complicating it.  This proposal is to detect a possible duplicate volunteer record before it is created.  So there should be no situation where a merging of data is required for the volunteer record.

The check that is already performed during import of Do-it applications is currently working and simply detects a duplicate and adds the application related activities to the volunteer without creating a volunteer record.  This needs to be extended to checking local volunteer records as well. 

Jordan Release Dates 2018 cheap