Review Possible Duplicates

An application always comes in as its own new record. If it looks like someone already in your program, the new record gets a rose flag reading Possible duplicate of followed by the names it matched. The applicant is never interrupted, and nothing is linked automatically: a staff member decides whether to merge.

A record gets flagged when it shares any of these with someone already in your program: the same email address, the same first name, last name and date of birth, or the same phone number and date of birth. Matching only ever looks inside your own program, so the same person in another TRIO program is never flagged here.

Where You'll See the Flag

• The Pending Review list on your dashboard, next to the applicant's name.
• The Students list and the flagged record's profile header.

From the Pending Review list or the profile header, a Review Duplicate button opens the comparison screen. The button only appears if your role can edit students. Observers and guests see the flag but cannot act on it.

Review in Six Steps

1. Choose Review Duplicate from the flagged record. The screen is titled Review a Possible Duplicate.
2. If there is more than one possible match, pick the record you are comparing against from the list at the top. Switching to a different match clears any choices you have made, because a different match is a different question. The Assigned Advisor starts again from that match's advisor.
3. Read the two summary cards. Kept is the record already on file: it keeps its participant number, program years, and service history. Absorbed is the new application. Each card shows email, phone, date of birth, participant number, created date, and program years, so you can tell the two apart quickly.
4. Resolve the conflicts. The screen lists every field where both records have a value and the two values differ, including Entry Year, Target School at Entry (Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science), your program's own fields and, for a program year both records have, its status and outcomes. For each one, pick On File or New Application. Fields where the records agree are not shown at all. Where the kept record is blank and the application has a value, the value fills in without asking. You can see the full list under Applied Automatically.
5. Check the Assigned Advisor. It starts with the kept record's advisor, or the new application's advisor when the kept record has none, and the line under it says which record it comes from. To assign the student to someone else, choose another staff member from the list, or choose Unassigned, which also removes the advisor from the current program year's reports, as it does on the profile. The list shows the staff who can be assigned students in your program, so an archived account is never offered. If you choose someone that neither record names, they get the usual notification that a student was assigned to them.
6. Choose an outcome: Merge Records or Not a Duplicate. Merge Records stays grayed out until every listed conflict has a choice, and the screen tells you how many are still unanswered. Either button opens a confirmation step: Yes, Merge These Records or Yes, They Are Different People. The merge confirmation names the advisor you chose. Nothing is written until you confirm.

If both records hold information for the same program year and their answers differ, a Program Years section appears with the same pick-a-side choices, one for each field and year. The year's Status comes first. Choosing a status can leave the student out of that year's federal report, for example choosing Rejected when the other record is Served or Reportable, or Served when the other record is Reportable. The screen says so under your choice and again when you confirm.

TRIOPilot does not ask about what nobody answered: the participant number, the two cohort years it keeps for the annual report, and an Age at First Service it calculates from the date of birth.

It's Fine to Call the Student

The fastest way to settle a conflict is often to ask the student which answer is right. Nothing is saved until you confirm, so you can leave the screen open while you call, come back later or close the tab without changing anything.

What a Merge Does

• The kept record stays, with its participant number, program years, and service history intact.
• The new application's contacts, documents, comments, texts, bulk texts, and event attendance move across to the kept record, and so does the submitted application itself. The kept record ends up holding both submissions.
• If both records were logged for the same event, or in the same contact save, and the two contacts of a contact type are exact copies (the same date, modality, notes and the person it is logged under, with a file attached to both or to neither), the kept record keeps one, so the event counts once. The new application's copy is saved to deleted records with the rest, and a file attached to it moves to the kept record's contact.
• If the two copies differ in any of those, both stay on the kept record, so nothing either one says is lost. Before you merge, a Contacts on Both Records card names each one. After the merge, open the kept record's Activity Feed and delete the copy you do not want.
• A bulk text still waiting to go out to the new application's record goes to the kept record instead. A scheduled text checks the kept record's text consent and number before it goes out. If the same bulk text also includes the kept record, the new application's copy is not sent, so the kept record is never texted twice.
• A scanned paper application that added the new application's record now names the kept record, so its Open the Student link opens the kept record.
• Any program years the kept record does not already have are added. For a program year both records have, the kept record takes the answers you chose in step 4, including the year's status. Where it is blank for that year, the new application's value is kept, including APR outcomes and your program's own fields. The Applied Automatically card lists these values and the years that will move before you commit.
• For EOC and Talent Search, Age at First Service is the exception to filling a blank: when the kept record's age is calculated from the date of birth, the merge does not copy the new application's age. TRIOPilot calculates it once, after the merge, from the kept record's date of birth (filled from the new application if the kept record had none) and all of its contacts, including the ones the merge moves, and the Applied Automatically card does not list it. The Activity Feed entry for that change names you, the person who merged the records. See How Age at First Service Is Calculated.
• The kept record is assigned to the advisor you chose in step 5. If the kept record's advisor has an archived account, or can no longer be assigned students in your program, the screen names them and starts with the new application's advisor instead, or with Unassigned. Choosing an advisor from either record sends no notification, because the student was already assigned to them.
• The kept record takes the new application's tags, after any it already has. Tags already on the kept record always stay.
• If your program uses the Student Portal and only the new application's record has a portal sign-in, the sign-in moves to the kept record, so the participant keeps signing in and sees the kept record. If both records have one, step 4 asks which sign-in to keep, shown by each account's email address. The one you do not keep can still sign in, but it finds no record in your program, and the screen says so before you merge.
• If another record was flagged as a possible duplicate of the new application, it stays flagged, now as a possible duplicate of the kept record, because they are the same person.
• If either record is on a Talent Search enrollee list recorded as filed, its list row moves to the kept record.
• TRIOPilot also keeps the year a student's postsecondary enrollment cohort or high school graduation cohort starts, which some programs' annual reports count. The merge copies a cohort year only when the kept record agrees with it. For a cohort that starts in the program year being merged, the kept record's own outcome for that year decides: for example, if the kept record says the student did not enroll in postsecondary education that year, the new application's enrollment cohort for that year is not copied. For a cohort carried forward from an earlier year, the kept record's own record for that earlier year decides: the cohort is copied when the kept record has no record for that year or shows the same cohort there.
• For Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math-Science, a Postsecondary Education Enrollment Cohort your staff recorded is kept unless the kept record's enrollment outcome for the year that cohort starts says the student did not enroll. A blank or Unknown outcome never stops it.
• Links and notifications that name the record you merged away open the record you kept.
• When the kept record holds more than one program year after the merge, it is marked Continuing, since the student has come back to your program. Otherwise, for example when both records hold only the same program year, it is marked Continuing only if it already was. The same pill is set when a student rolls into the new year and when you add a prior-year student to the current year from their profile.
• The absorbed record is removed from your student list, and you land on the kept record's profile.
• Before anything changes, a snapshot of both records, of each of the kept record's program years that the merge can change, and of the application's contacts, documents, comments, texts, bulk texts, and event attendance is saved to deleted records. Nothing is destroyed outright, but undoing a merge is not self-service. If you need one reversed, choose Share Feedback in the sidebar or email support@triopilot.com.

When It's Not a Duplicate

If the two records are different people, choose Not a Duplicate, then confirm with Yes, They Are Different People. The flag is removed and both records stay exactly as they are. Nothing merges, nothing moves.

Good to Know

• The flag never blocks anything. A flagged record is a complete, working student record. You can log contacts, upload documents, and edit the profile as usual while the flag is up.
• You choose every conflict. A merge never replaces a value unless you chose it, and it never keeps one side of a conflict without asking. It adds the new application's tags to the kept record's own. The participant number is never copied from the other record.
• Someone beat you to it? If another staff member merges or dismisses the pair while your screen is open, your merge is refused with a message asking you to reload and review again. The same happens if either record's assigned advisor changes while your screen is open, for example because the student booked an appointment or an administrator reassigned them, so a merge never replaces an assignment you did not see.
• Every decision is recorded. Merges and dismissals both land in the admin audit log as Merged Duplicate Records and Dismissed a Duplicate Flag, including which side you chose for each field and whether the merge kept, changed, or removed the assigned advisor. The audit log does not name the advisor. The kept record's Activity Feed also shows one entry for the merge itself, for example Lee Park merged a duplicate record into this one, with the date and time. When a merge changes the advisor, the kept record's Activity Feed shows the previous and new advisor by name. See See Who Changed What.