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SmartMerge & Merging Duplicate Records

Updated

Finding duplicate contacts, leads, and organizations, and merging them into one master record without losing linked information.

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Preventing duplicates

Insightly guards against duplicates at several points rather than only cleaning up afterward. Duplicate checks run during import, and as you enter contacts and organizations manually.

Duplicate Contact Detection During New Entry — When adding a new contact in Insightly CRM, a popup appears warning that 5 possible duplicate contacts already exist, listing matching names, titles, roles, and email addresses. This helps users avoid creating redundant records by identifying existing contacts before saving.
Duplicate Lead Detection Warning in Insightly — A lead record for William Burr is shown with an “OPEN - Duplicate” status, and a yellow warning panel alerts the user that two other open leads (Bill Burr and Burr Bill) share the same email address. This feature helps CRM users identify and manage duplicate contact entries to keep their database clean and accurate.

Finding duplicates

SmartMerge finds duplicate contacts, organizations, and leads. There are four ways to start the merge process; once you’ve confirmed a set of duplicates, you merge them into one master record.

Sidebar Menu Options in Organizations View — The screenshot shows the All Organizations list view with a sidebar panel open, revealing options including SmartMerge Organizations, Import Organizations and Notes, and Export Organizations and Notes. This helps users locate bulk management and data transfer features accessible from the organizations list.
Insightly Organization Actions Menu Options — The screenshot shows an organization record for “Caravellas, Inc.” in Insightly CRM with the Actions dropdown menu open, displaying options such as Edit, Delete, Merge, and SmartMerge. A red arrow highlights the “SmartMerge Organization” option at the bottom of the menu, indicating it is the focus of the support article.
Merging Duplicate Organization Records in Insightly — Three organization records are selected using checkboxes, with an arrow pointing to the merge icon in the toolbar above. This illustrates how to combine duplicate entries in the CRM to keep contact data clean and consolidated.

The SmartMerge report

A SmartMerge report lists every contact, lead, or organization with similar-sounding names, which catches close matches as well as exact duplicates. The report is emailed to you as a zipped Excel file, and is the more thorough option when auditing a whole database rather than fixing one record. The download link in the email stays valid for 30 days.

SmartMerge Duplicate Organizations Report Email — This shows the email notification sent after running a SmartMerge Duplicate Organizations Detection, addressed to a user and containing a download link for the results. This matters because it confirms where users can find their duplicate detection data after the process completes.
Duplicate Organizations List in SmartMerge Tool — A table displays organizations flagged as possible duplicates in Insightly CRM, with each original organization paired with one or more similar records and a SmartMerge link to resolve them. This helps users identify and merge duplicate company records to keep their CRM data clean and accurate.

Merging with SmartMerge

Merging combines duplicates into one master record. The master record is the one that remains after the merge; the other duplicate, called the source record, is deleted and moved to the Recycle Bin. When merging, the source record’s fields populate the master record’s empty default and custom fields. If a field is already populated on the master record, it is not overwritten. Keep this in mind when choosing which record to make the master.

SmartMerge Duplicate Records Selection Interface — The screenshot shows the SmartMerge tool in Insightly CRM displaying two sets of duplicate organization records, each with checkboxes selected and a “SmartMerge Selected” button to combine them. Selecting Master Record When Merging Organizations — The SmartMerge screen shows two duplicate organization records, with a tooltip prompting the user to click one record to designate it as the Master. Choosing the master record determines which organization’s data is retained as the primary record after the merge is complete.
Selecting Master Record for Organization Merge — A dropdown menu is open in the SmartMerge tool, allowing the user to choose which record will serve as the master record when merging two duplicate organizations. Merging Duplicate Organizations in Insightly CRM — The SmartMerge screen shows two duplicate organization records being combined, with one selected as the master record and the Merge Organizations button highlighted.

ℹ️ If you use Insightly Marketing, SmartMerge also handles the related Prospect. When both the master and secondary contact have a related Prospect, Insightly merges the two Prospects. When only the secondary contact has a Prospect, Insightly links that Prospect to the master contact and updates the Prospect’s email address to match the master contact’s email address. When the two Prospects hold conflicting field values, the master contact’s information takes precedence, unless the master’s value is empty, in which case it inherits the other Prospect’s value.

Manual merges

Two contacts or two organizations

You could simply delete a duplicate from the Actions menu, but if it holds information the original lacks, merging preserves it instead. The duplicate (the source) merges into the record you want to keep.

Merge Into An Organization Option in Insightly — The screenshot shows the Actions dropdown menu open on an organization record called “Longborn, LTD,” with the “Merge Into An Organization” option highlighted. This is relevant for users who need to combine duplicate organization records within Insightly CRM.
Selecting Target Organization for Merging Records — A dialog box asks the user to confirm merging “Longborn, LTD” into another organization, with a search field showing results for “longbo” and the cursor selecting “Longbourn, LTD” from the dropdown list. This illustrates how to search for and choose the destination organization when combining duplicate records in Insightly CRM.
Merge Organizations Confirmation Dialog Box — A modal dialog box prompts the user to confirm merging two organization records, showing “Longborn, LTD” and “Longbourn, LTD” with a blue “Merge These Organizations” button and a Cancel option. This step is critical because it is the final confirmation before combining all associated notes, files, emails, and contacts from both records into one.

A contact into an organization

Sometimes a contact record was created for what is actually an existing organization. Converting it from the Actions menu is the usual route, but merging retains linked notes, files, emails, and tasks that a conversion would lose.

Merging a Contact Into an Organization — The screenshot shows the Actions dropdown menu open on a contact record for Tim Horton in Insightly CRM, with the “Merge Into An Organization” option highlighted and indicated by a red arrow. This helps readers identify exactly where to find and click this option when they need to merge a contact record into an existing organization. Merge Contact Into Organization Dialog Box — This dialog box allows users to merge a contact named Tim Horton into an existing organization by searching for the organization name. It includes a bold red warning stating the deletion is permanent and cannot be undone, along with “Merge Contact Into Organization” and “Cancel” buttons.

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