How Merge Works
What actually happens to the records after you answer a contact case. These are the rules the checker applies, written out field by field, so you can predict the result before you press a button. Companion to How to resolve contact cases.
Three things are true for every answer:
- Nothing is deleted. Merges are HubSpot merges, which keep both histories, and HubSpot can undo a merge for a while afterwards.
- MOM is never changed. If a MOM number should be retired, that is a separate step for whoever maintains MOM.
- An email is never overwritten. A contact keeps the email it has; extra emails are added alongside it.
If you answer "Same person, keep survivor"
You picked a customer number (or a record). From that point:
1. The number. Every HubSpot contact in the case that carries a different number is changed to the survivor's number. If two contacts in the case would then carry the same number, the next step merges them.
2. The merge, when two HubSpot contacts are in the case. The contact that carries the survivor's number is the one that stays. The other is merged into it. HubSpot's merge does the following, and it is HubSpot's rule, not ours:
| What | Result |
|---|---|
| The staying contact keeps its email as primary. The merged contact's email becomes an additional email on the staying contact. Both still find the contact: a form, a checkout or a reply from either address lands on it. | |
| Name, company, job title, phone, address, and every other property | The staying contact's value is kept. Where the staying contact was blank, the merged contact's value fills it. Nothing from the staying contact is replaced. |
| Deals, invoices, notes, emails sent, meetings, tickets | All moved to the staying contact. Nothing is lost. |
| Company association | Kept; if the two contacts were associated to different companies, the staying contact ends up associated to both. |
| Lists and workflows | The staying contact is in the union of both memberships. |
| The merged contact's record id | Redirects to the staying contact, so old links still open the right record. |
If neither contact in the case carried the survivor's number, the one with deals stays; if neither has deals, the older one stays.
3. The fill. After the number and the merge, blanks on the staying contact are filled from the other records in the case, in this order: MOM first, then the website. Only blanks:
| Field | Filled when | From |
|---|---|---|
| First name, last name, company, job title | blank on the contact | the first record that has it |
| Street address, city, state | the contact has no street address | the buyer's billing address in MOM |
| Zip | blank on the contact | MOM |
| Phone | the contact's phone is empty | MOM's phone, then the website's |
| Mobile phone | phone is already taken and mobilephone is empty | the next phone found |
Shipping address (the website's shipping_* fields) | the contact has no shipping address at all | MOM's ship-to address for that customer |
A populated field is never replaced by a fill, even if MOM's value is newer. If a wrong value is on the contact, fix it in HubSpot by hand; the checker will not touch it.
4. What is dropped. Nothing. The only thing that stops existing as its own record is the merged HubSpot contact, and its content lives on in the staying one. The losing MOM number stays in MOM until someone retires it there.
If you answer "Different people"
- No contact is changed, merged or created from this case. The records stay exactly as they are, permanently; the checker will never connect these particular records again, even on new evidence.
- One email address, several people. HubSpot can hold an email on only one contact. The contact that already has it keeps it. The other MOM customers in the case get a HubSpot contact without an email (or keep the one they have if it already exists). They are still customers with their own numbers; they just cannot be reached at that shared address from HubSpot until they use an address of their own, which then attaches to their contact automatically.
- A contact carrying the wrong number (the S8 "number MOM does not know" case): the contact keeps its number for now and is flagged separately as a bad number.
If you answer "Different customers, same organisation"
- Exactly like "Different people" for the records: nothing is merged, nothing is changed, and the checker never links them again.
- Plus a colleague link between them, kept for the company association.
- Plus, if you picked a number, the person's own contact (the one whose last name matches that MOM customer) is corrected to carry it. Nothing else is written.
If you answer "Defer"
Nothing at all. The case stays open.
Two humans, one billable customer
Sometimes two records really are different people and you still want one customer: a couple who order as a household, an assistant who orders on a director's account, an agency that wants a single billing identity. That is allowed. A billable customer does not have to be one person; it is whoever gets the bill.
How to do it today: answer Same person, keep survivor and pick the number that should be billed. The result is one HubSpot contact under that number. Know what that costs:
- The other person's contact is merged in. Their name stops being on a contact of their own; their email becomes an additional email on the survivor, so their orders still land there.
- Anything sent to that contact goes out under the survivor's name.
When that cost is wrong, because both people genuinely need their own contact (their own name on emails, their own deals), answer Different customers, same organisation instead: each person keeps a contact, the two are recorded as colleagues, and the company association will bill under the company. If one contact is wearing the company's number, choose the person's own number in the dropdown first and the contact is corrected to it.
Who owns which side
- The rules above are APSync's. HubSpot's merge behaviour is HubSpot's and is documented in its help centre under "Merge contacts".
- Retiring a MOM number after a "same person" answer is MOM's side.
- Changing a value that the fill will not touch (a wrong phone, an old address) is done in HubSpot directly, by whoever has the record open.