Within Join It, each Organization has the ability to select how they want potentially duplicate members to be handled and auto-merged (or not!).
To find the settings within your Organization, you can navigate on the side bar to 'Members' > 'Member Settings' > 'Merge Rules'.
Once you're viewing the Merge Rules options, you'll find the following (more detailed descriptions for each option are included below):
Limited Merge Scenarios (default): Membership records will automatically merge in limited scenarios.
Merge Matching Records: Membership records will automatically merge in cases where email and Membership Type match.
Merge Similar Records: Membership records will automatically merge in cases where Join It predicts a redundant record.
Do Not Merge: No Membership records will automatically merge.
Detailed description for "Limited Merge Scenario"
The default merge rule option for an Organization on Join It is "Limited Merge Scenarios".
With this option selected, the only cases where Join It will automatically merge records are:
Merging 'Prospective' Memberships when there is an 'Active' Membership: Join It allows Organizations to store 'Prospective' membership records, with this rule selected, Join It will automatically merge 'Prospective' memberships that match on 'email' of an 'Active' membership.
Merging multiple 'Prospective' Memberships: With this rule selected, Join It will automatically merge 'Prospective' memberships that match the 'email' of another 'Prospective' membership.
Detailed description for "Merge Matching Records"
The next option that Join It supports allows Organizations to increase the likelihood that matching records will merge by expanding the criteria.
With this option selected, the cases where Join It will automatically merge records are:
Merging 'Prospective' Memberships when there is an 'Active' Membership: [Described above].
Merging multiple 'Prospective' Memberships: [Described above]
Merging matching Memberships of the same Membership Type: With this rule selected, Join It will also merge memberships when they match on Membership Type + Email Address & one membership is 'Active' and the other membership is 'Inactive' (or soon to expire within 14 days).
Detailed description for "Merge Similar Records"
The next option that Join It supports allows Organizations to increase the likelihood of matching records even further by removing the criteria for matching Membership Types.
Merging 'Prospective' Memberships when there is an 'Active' Membership: [Described at the top].
Merging multiple 'Prospective' Memberships: [Described at the top]
Merging matching Memberships of the same Membership Type: With this rule selected, Join It will also merge memberships when they match on Email Address & one membership is 'Active' and the other membership is 'Inactive' (or soon to expire within 14 days).
Detailed description for "Do Not Merge"
Lastly, we've added an option that Organizations can select so that Join It will not automatically merge any membership records.
We also have a great article that goes over how to prevent Duplicate memberships that you can find here.
We added these features based on a huge amount of feedback on how our customers run their individual Organizations. If you want to give us advice or comments on this feature -- then we would absolutely love to hear it!
General Details on Auto-Merge
When two Memberships are auto-merged, here's a detailed description of which data is preserved:
Joined Date: This process will preserve the earlier of the two Joined Dates.
Expiration Date: This process will preserve the Expiration Date that is further in the future.
Membership ID: This process will preserve the Membership ID of the older Membership when available. If no previous Membership ID exists, then it'll keep the newly generated Membership ID.
Default Information (e.g. Company, Job Title, Birthday): The newly created membership will have its default information take priority over existing default information.
Custom Fields: The newly created membership will have its custom fields information take priority over existing custom answers..
Membership Payments: Any membership payments owned by the two merging Memberships will be combined and owned by the newly created Membership.
Eventbrite Orders: Eventbrite Order information will be combined and displayed on the newly created Membership.