Merging records in Salesforce should be a breeze. But have you felt the frustration when you the notorious error ”MERGE_FAILED… redundant account-contact relationship”, throwing a wrench into your consolidation efforts?
-the DataTrim Merge Wizard will help you overcome this obstacle with grace.
In this blog, we’ll unravel the challenges posed by the “These contacts have the same related account” error. And introduce you to a game-changing approach that skilfully overcomes this issue during the merge process.
“MERGE_FAILED, These contacts have the same related account. Open the related account record and remove redundant account-contact relationship, then try Merging again”
Say goodbye to the cumbersome task of manually resolving redundant account-contact relationships. Join us as we explore how our solution ensures a smooth and error-free Salesforce merging experience for you and your team.
Why: Redundant Account-Contact Relationship ?
When salesforce introduced the Account-Contact Relation, to support the linkage of one contact to multiple accounts, they created a new table to store these relations. A contact always has one (and only one) direct relation with an account. By means on the Relationship records the contact can now have multiple (relations) to other accounts.
A merge in salesforce implies that the master record is updated, and the dupe is deleted, and at the same time ANY reference to the dupe, will be updated so that these references will be relinked to the master. This applies to all objects, and means as an example, that activities which was associated with the dupe, will be re-linked. After the merge, these activities will be associated to the master.
When Merging 2 Accounts or 2 Contacts
When you perform a merge of 2 accounts or 2 contacts which has multiple Account-Contact Relations, the references to the dupe record will also be replaced with a reference to the master record.
A contact which a direct relationship with Account A, and an indirect relationship with company B, will cause a redundant Account-Contact Relationship if Account A is Merged with Account B. This is because both Account-Contact Relation records, will after the update link the same contact to the master Account.
The merge will generate the “MERGE_FAILED, These contacts have the same related account.”-error. This is because the Account-Contact Relation object doesn’t allow multiple records with the same Account-Contact Relation, thus the redundancy
Mergins Account-Contact Relation with the DataTrim Merge Wizard
With the DataTrim Merge wizard these conflicting Account Contact Relation are displayed in a separate section of the Merge Wizard. An algorithm is predicting the optimal outcome for the merge. The widget will display which Account Contact Relations that will need to be removed in order for the merge to succeed.
Merge Example:
In the example above:
- Test Account #1, has a direct Contact: Jane Doe.
- Test Account #2 has a direct Contact Sam Smith.
- The same Sam Smith is also having an indirect relationship with Test Account #1.
- Jane Doe, also has an indirect relationship with Test Account #2.
- Philip Jansen, had an indirect relationship with both Test Account #1 and Test Account #2
A normal merge will fail with the Error: MERGE_FAILED, These contacts have the same related account:
- Sam Smith and Jane Doe should be Direct contacts of the new master Account. Which implies that the 2 indirect relationship records should be removed.
- Philip Jansen, will remain an indirect contact on the new master account. But one of the indirect relationship records should be removed.
In total 3 indirect relationship records, shall be removed/deleted in order to perform the merge. Al marked in the widget with a wastebin.
When you change the selection of the Master Record: The DataTrim Merge Wizard determines which indirect relationship records that needs to be removed/deleted. When the merge is initiated, the removal of the redunant relations are performed this as an integral part of operation.
DataTrim Marge Wizard – a part of DataTrim Dupe Alerts
DataTrim Dupe Alerts – is a salesforce app, availale on the AppExchange. It is specialized in performing deduplications on small and large databases, containing lead, contact, account, consumer and candidate records.
Watch the introduction videos below, or contact us to learn more about how we can help you.
Learn More about DataTrim Dupe Alerts
DataTrim Dupe Alerts, Introduction (Video)
Big Deduplications – Mass Merge in Batch
DataTrim Dupe Alerts – Mastering Alert Filters
