Conflict resolution in data merging means deciding what to do when duplicate records have different values in the same field.
Example:
| Name | Job title | |---|---| | Jane Carter | Head of Sales | | Jane Carter | VP Sales |
The records might be duplicates, but the Job title field conflicts. A merge rule must decide what happens.
Common conflict types
Conflicts often appear in:
- Job titles
- Phone numbers
- Notes
- Company names
- Addresses
- Tags
- Lifecycle stages
- CRM owner fields
Some conflicts are harmless. Others need manual review.
⚠️ Do not hide conflicts
A good deduplication workflow shows conflicting fields before merging. This prevents useful CRM data from being overwritten.
Ways to resolve merge conflicts
Common conflict rules include:
- Keep the master record value
- Drop the conflicting value
- Combine values with a delimiter
- Keep the newest value
- Keep the value from a trusted source
- Send the duplicate group to manual review
Notes and tags can often be combined. Status fields, owner fields, and lifecycle fields usually need a stricter rule.
Datablist workflow
Datablist detects fields with conflicting values before auto-merge.
For fields that can be combined, choose a delimiter such as semicolon, comma, space, or line break. For fields where conflicts should not be kept, drop conflicting values or review the group manually.
Pair conflict resolution with duplicate merge rules, master record selection, and the Duplicates Remover.