When someone gives, joins a group, or fills out a form, they must enter their name and email address. If those fields don't match an existing profile, the system creates a new profile. Prevent people from creating duplicates by encouraging them to log in to Church Center or by emailing specific instructions.
Warning
In Registrations, if someone registers a person not in their household, a duplicate profile will be created even if the registration contact uses the same name and email address as their existing profile.
It's safer to create a new profile that can be merged with the correct person than to add the wrong person's information to an existing profile. Our products use a combination of a few fields to determine if a profile matches one in your database. All fields must match exactly, or the system will create a new profile.
For example, if we have this person:
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First Name: Bob
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Given Name: Robert
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Last Name: Smith
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Home Email: bob@home.com
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Work Email: bob@work.com
Any Church Center activity under "Bob Smith" or "Robert Smith" will be tied to this existing profile, no matter which email is used. If he uses "Bobby" or "bob@other.com," a new profile will be created.
Tip
The First Name, Given Name, and Nickname article will help you handle these fields in your database!
When a person registers for an event, makes a donation, signs up for a group, or fills out a form, they do it from the Church Center website. To ensure their information is attached to their profile, ask them to log in first.
Select the Require submitters to be logged in to Church Center option in a form's Settings tab if you want to ensure people are logged in before filling out the form.
When a login is required for a form, the form cannot be embedded.