I'm curious as to how other organizations handle not having unique identifiers coming in for constituent records. For example, I'm the database administrator for a 4 campus RE system, and just found out we are not allowed to be given social security numbers any more to identify employees already in our system. So really my questions are two fold: Does anyone have a nail down on what blackbaud provides for duplication checking (ie, do they only check last name and first name, last, first, and birth date, etc)? And two, how do other organizations solve the problem of identifying whether or not John Smith is really a John Smith in the database, or is a new John Smith?

Thanks for any help,
Doug
Database Administrator
[Email Removed]

For our donors who are employees we use the employee id number and add a 10 to the front. To donors who are out of the employee category, and there are many, we just use the constituent ID number that is automatically added. We compare addresses but mainly rely on gift donation information. We also run a duplicate consituent report on monthly basis which assists with our database clean up. You may want to try a birthday as an identifier. While there are many who have the same birthday, their names may differ. Tammy Metrovich Direct Mail and Database Coordinator Raiser's Edge Specialist St. Joseph's Foundation [Email Removed]

Doug, I always check Lexis Nexis when a "new" donor's name matches a record in our database but the addresses are different. With a basic address search, you can often see current address as well as previous addresses. It sometimes also gives the gender, spouse name, date of birth, and first 5 digits of ss#. This has helped us greatly reduce the number of new duplicates added to our system. I'm not sure if I understand your question regarding what Blackbaud provides -- are you talking about their duplication checking service or the duplicate criteria setup in Configuration? Sarah Taft Development Officer - Database Manager San Francisco SPCA

Their duplication checking that is included in RE. I worked as a banner programmer, and all that was checked for duplication was last name and first name. Hence we had some major duplication problems because some students would submit their name as Doug Creek, when their legal name is Douglas Creek, and Banner would create a new record of Doug Creek because they didn't match... I wanted to make sure that the duplicate checking isn't just checking on name, but also on at least birth date, socials where we have them, maybe addresses, etc.

Thanks for the info,
Doug

Go to configuration - business rules - duplicate criteria. It has a default of LN FN but you can change it to anything you want. Melissa S. Graves Manager, Development Database & Direct Mail Planned Parenthood of Connecticut [Email Removed] 203-752-2804 *** Sorry my spelling stinks!