Improve duplicate prevention and matching logic
complete
Jonathan Lin
It would be great to see improvements in the matching logic Give Lively uses when choosing to update existing contacts or create new.
Scenarios:
1) Donor makes a gift as jdoe@gmail.com. Jane Doe's Email address and Work Email in Salesforce is recorded as janedoe@company.com, but her Personal Email is jdoe@gmail.com. Currently, Give Lively would create a new contact instead of updating the existing.
2) Donor makes a gift as jdoe@gmail.com. Salesforce has a lead with the email address of jdoe@gmail.com, as well as two different contact records with the same email address. Give Lively picks one and associates the gift. It would be better if the administrator could be alerted to the multiple matches, and given a chance to select which one is correct.
Jonathan Lin
complete
I am happy to report that first stage of improvements to contact matching is now live! For orgs with the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) installed, the Give Lively sync process will look for contact matches using the standard Email field as well as the three NPSP email fields (Personal, Work, and Alternate). If multiple matches are found for a given donor, we will choose the match with the higher Total Number of Gifts value. If there is a tie, then we will choose the contact with a populated mailing address. If there is another tie, then we will choose the most recently updated record.
We have further match logic improvements planned, but we hope that these changes will improve match accuracy and reduce duplication during syncing.
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Jennifer Otremba
Jonathan Lin: Awesome work on this!!
Jonathan Lin
Jennifer Otremba: Thank you! The whole team is proud of this one, and we're already looking at what the next phase might hold.
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Anli Lee
Jonathan Lin: THANK YOU!!!!
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Rose Sherman
Jonathan Lin: Terrific news! Do we need to apply an update OR does this get applied automatically?
Jonathan Lin
Rose Sherman: Hi Rose, great question! This is automatic as it's implemented on the Give Lively side vs. in the app itself.
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Jennifer Otremba
Great to hear this is in progress! I would add that it would be great to be able to match on Email + Name (or at least have the option to set it to that criteria). Without that, I've had clients end up with scenarios where gifts get attributed to someone else when the same email is used for multiple members of a family.
Jonathan Lin
Jennifer Otremba: Excellent point! This is not in scope for the first round of improvements to this feature, but we can definitely consider it for a future improvement. For this upcoming phase, the sync will consider all possible matches by the stock Email field as well as the three NPSP email fields, and then prioritize among them based on giving history and population of address fields.
Jonathan Lin
in progress
Admin at CFN
I also agree with Dianne. We were really excited about moving to Give Lively from another platform, but this issue preventing us from doing so. We'd love to be able to switch after this has been addressed!
Vanessa Goold
Yes! This would be great. And +1 to Dianne Saterbak's idea. Also, we have a validation rule on our Create New Contact process in Salesforce. Any way to allow for that in the sync? Basically it blocks the creation of new contacts because the Give Lively sync can't be customized to autofill a couple of custom fields. It would be wonderful if we could customize the field matching and have the ability to map custom fields.
Jonathan Lin
Vanessa Goold: Hi Vanessa, regarding your need to autofill additional custom fields, is it possible that could be handled via Salesforce automation in the interim? Depending on requirements, you might be able to get by with Workflows or a Process Builder process.
Michael Sulja
I agree with Dianne, running into this exact same issue.
Nicole Alter
under review
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Dianne Saterbak
I would love to see a change where Give Lively looks at all (or more than one) email fields in SF when looking for a match! We have multiple emails for our donors and they don't always use the email we have in "email" when creating their donation. SOmetimes they use what we have in their Personal Email field, or their Alternate Email field.Because Give Lively only looks at a single email address for the donor, it attempts to create a duplicate contact, which gets rejected based on SF duplicate rules.
Jonathan Lin
Dianne Saterbak: Thanks for taking the time to provide feedback! We're taking an active look now at how to implement this type of functionality in a future release. We intend for our eventual solution to at least be able to consider multiple email fields for matching purposes, and are considering other features like weighting by field or possibly comparing more than just email addresses. I can't offer anything definitive at this time, but I do want you know that we also see this as a priority.
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Dianne Saterbak
Jonathan Lin: Thanks, Jonathan! Glad to hear it is being considered in a future release. If you need assistance with establishing requirements, or with testing, let me know and I'd be happy to help.
Jonathan Lin
Dianne Saterbak: Very much appreciated! I'll be sure to keep your offer in mind as we get closer to identifying our practical options.