Rhythm compares contacts in the background and flags pairs that look like the same person. It uses fuzzy matching instead of exact matching, so some suggested pairs will not be true duplicates. Use this review to dismiss pairs that are not duplicates, add real duplicates the matching missed, and send confirmed duplicates to the merge wizard.
Review duplicates when you want to clean up your database, or when you see a duplicate warning on a contact record and want to resolve it from there.
Prerequisites
- Your role must include the contact merge permission, which comes with Power User or Administrator access. Without that permission, this page opens to an access-denied message.
- This review does not merge contacts for you. When you choose contacts to merge, Rhythm opens a separate wizard.
Warning
Duplicate-email prevention only affects future saves. It does not fix contacts that already share an email address, so you still need to find and resolve existing duplicates here. In the past, Rhythm could warn staff that an email address already existed without strictly blocking the save, which means two contacts could end up with the same email even when prevention was in use. There has also been no setting that guarantees email uniqueness outright, partly because more than one place in Rhythm can update an email value. Treat this review as the way to find and resolve those duplicates rather than assuming a setting alone will prevent them.
Review the Whole List
If your CRM overview shows a Potential Duplicates KPI, it is meant to show the number of potential duplicates and open this list when you select it. That KPI can show N/A and stop working correctly. When that happens, this page and the steps below are still the reliable way to find and review duplicate contacts in your Rhythm account.
- Go to Contacts, then choose Find & Merge Duplicate Contacts, the outlined button beside Create Contact. If your CRM home page still shows the legacy dashboard, you can also choose Manage Duplicates there.
- Rhythm lists every contact with at least one suspected duplicate, starting with the most likely match, and shows one card per person. A contact can also have its own card when you already added a duplicate by hand from that contact’s record.
- Select a card’s chevron to expand it. The header shows the contact’s name, number, email, postal code, highest match probability, and duplicate count.
- On the Potential Duplicates tab, review each suggested match by name, number, email, postal code, and probability. Every suggestion starts checked.
- If a suggestion is not the same person, choose Ignore next to it. Rhythm saves the dismissal right away and shows a message that the contact was added to the dismissed matches list, with a link to undo it. Rhythm does not suggest that pair again unless you undo the dismissal on either contact’s record.
- If matching missed a real duplicate, choose Manually Add Duplicate, search for the contact, and choose Add. A duplicate you add by hand always shows a probability of 100 and appears under Manually Added Duplicates.
- When you are ready to combine records, leave the contacts you want checked and choose Review & Resolve Merge Conflicts. This opens the merge wizard for the checked contacts, and the button stays disabled until at least one contact is checked.
Result
Ignoring a duplicate, undoing an ignore, adding a duplicate, or removing a duplicate saves immediately. The card you are working in updates right away, but the page’s overall count and the other cards update only after you reload the page.
There is no query or report that lists all duplicate contacts in your Rhythm account, including contacts above a certain match probability, such as 90%. This page is the only place to identify them. Because duplicate records often have related memberships, event registrations, or financial data, most duplicates need individual review instead of bulk cleanup. If you have already identified specific duplicate records another way, such as contacts mistakenly brought in by an import, you can query for them, export a copy for reference, and bulk-delete the selected records from that query. There is no dependable way to find all duplicates that way on your own.
If a contact has an unexpected relationship, such as an inherited corporate membership that does not look right, check whether that contact has an unresolved duplicate. A duplicate profile can be the underlying cause. When you need to understand how a duplicate was created, such as whether it came from Portal sign-up or was entered by staff, the contact’s record history and security details can show who created it and how.
Tip
The header on a duplicate card shows the contact's Number — the numeric Contact Number, not the same value as the Contact ID or a System External ID an integration might use. Keep these identifiers straight when you compare records, because confusing them can lead to the wrong conclusion about which records are really duplicates.
Undo a Dismissal or Remove a Manual Match
- To bring back a pair you dismissed, open the Ignored Duplicates tab and choose Undo Ignore. Rhythm checks the pair again the next time matching runs, so it reappears on the Potential Duplicates tab only if it still looks like a match.
- To take back a duplicate you added by hand, choose Remove next to it under Manually Added Duplicates.
Neither action asks you to confirm, and Rhythm does not keep a record of who dismissed, added, or removed a pair, or when.
Resolve a Single Contact's Warning
You can also start from one person instead of the whole list:
- Open the contact’s record.
- If Rhythm suspects a duplicate, a banner appears near the top of the page with the number of duplicate versions it found and a link to review them. You can also choose Contact Options, then Merge Duplicate Contacts.
- Either option opens Review & Merge Duplicate Contacts for that contact and shows the same card described above. If the contact has no suspected duplicates, Rhythm instead opens a panel where you can choose contacts to merge by hand.
The banner shows a count only when the contact has at least one suspected match. If a contact’s only duplicates were added by hand, the banner does not appear, but those manual matches still appear when you open the review.
If Something Goes Wrong
| What you see | What it means and what to do |
|---|---|
Good News! It doesn't look like there are any duplicate contacts in your database! | Rhythm found no contacts with a suspected duplicate when it built the list. |
For performance purposes, only 100 duplicates are being shown on this screen. | Your Rhythm account has more than 100 flagged contacts. Resolve some of the contacts shown, then reload the page to see more. There is no way to page through the rest. |
| The Ignore or Manually Add Duplicate action does not seem to have any effect | Reload the browser page. Card actions save right away, but the page’s totals and every other card update only after you reload. |
| A contact stays on the list even after you've ignored, merged, or removed all of its potential duplicates | Reload the page. A contact with no remaining potential duplicates normally clears from the list after a refresh. If it does not clear, try Undo Ignore on one of that contact's ignored entries. Some staff have found that this removes the contact from the list even though it does not restore the pair as a potential duplicate. |
| An action such as Ignore returns an error instead of saving | The duplicate record only accepts changes to its duplicate lists and count. If the save also carries other changes, Rhythm refuses it. Reload the page to get a fresh copy of the record, then try again. |
| A duplicate warning link on a contact record is visible but does nothing when you select it | This can be a browser-side issue. Clear your browser's cache and browsing history, then reload the page and try the link again. |
| A member reports being denied access to something they should be able to reach | Check whether the member has a duplicate contact record, such as one active and one inactive copy. Access problems can follow the wrong or inactive copy even when the active record should have access. |
| A suggested duplicate is inaccessible and can't be opened or merged normally | The record may already be deleted but still appears as a lingering duplicate. This is not a normal merge case; contact Rhythm Support to have the stale reference removed. |
| Find & Merge Duplicate Contacts opens to an access-denied message | Your role does not include the contact merge permission. Ask an administrator to add Power User or Administrator access. |