Merging a user's duplicate account

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<p id="docs-hc-snippet" style="display: none;">Duplicate accounts for a single user can make it challenging to provide great customer support. To avoid this, you can add multiple email addresses and social media handles to a user's profile. This enables you to properly identify the user regardless of the email address or social media channel they submit requests through without generating duplicate accounts. However, any time a user submits a request from an email or social media account that isn't in their user profile, a duplicate end user account might be created. This article describes how to merge duplicate accounts when this happens.</p>
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<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">You can merge duplicate end user accounts to consolidate tickets and user data, improving support accuracy. Merging combines tickets and email identities but removes tags, notes, and user fields from the merged account. It requires both accounts to be end users with fewer than 10,000 tickets each and cannot be undone. This helps maintain a single user profile despite multiple contact points.</p>
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<div class="body">

<p class="p">Duplicate accounts for a single user can make it challenging to provide great
customer support. To avoid this, you can add multiple email addresses and social
media handles to a user's profile. This enables you to properly identify the user
regardless of the email address or social media channel they submit requests
through without generating duplicate accounts. However, any time a user submits a
request from an email or social media account that isn't in their user profile, a
duplicate end user account might be created. This article describes how to merge
duplicate accounts when this happens.</p>
<div class="p">This article contains the following topics:<ul class="ul" id="topic-1__ul_szy_vty_fzb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_klp_3sy_fzb">Requirements and considerations for merging end user accounts</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_yjv_cty_fzb">Merging duplicate end user accounts</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_l3l_dnr_l3">Understanding how user data is merged</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_klp_3sy_fzb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Requirements and considerations for merging end user accounts</h2>
<div class="body">
<div class="p">If you do end up with multiple accounts for a single end user, you can merge
one of the accounts into the other, as long as the following is true: <ul class="ul" id="topic_klp_3sy_fzb__ul_bzb_fn1_rt">
<li class="li">Both accounts are for end users, not admins or agents.</li>
<li class="li">If the end user's account is unverified, they must have one or
both of the following: an email address or an X (formerly
Twitter) account.</li>
<li class="li">Each of the accounts to be merged have 10,000 tickets or less.
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="p">Before attempting to merge end user accounts, consider the following:<ul class="ul" id="topic_klp_3sy_fzb__ul_ggp_ssy_fzb">
<li class="li">If your account uses single sign-on and handles user
authentication with JWT or SAML, you can merge end user accounts
only if there are no external IDs associated with the merging
end user.</li>
<li class="li">Merging end user accounts can't be undone. Make sure to select the
correct user accounts.</li>
<li class="li">After merging accounts, any tickets created by the duplicate (now
merged) account are updated with the primary user account. These
ticket updates appear in the ticket event log as a requester
change, but do not cause triggers to fire.</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_yjv_cty_fzb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Merging duplicate end user accounts</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">Merging duplicate accounts enables your agents to provide better customer
support to your end users. However, a merge can't be undone. Be careful when
selecting the accounts to merge.</p>
<div class="p">
<strong class="ph b">To merge a user's duplicate account</strong><ol class="ol" id="topic_yjv_cty_fzb__ol_vpr_iek_vf">
<li class="li"><span class="ph">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408838272410" target="_blank">Support</a>, click <strong class="ph b">Customers</strong>
(<img class="image" id="topic_yjv_cty_fzb__d8e48" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_people_icon.png">) in the sidebar.</span></li>
<li class="li">In the <strong class="ph b">Search</strong> bar, enter the name of the user you want to
merge in the search box and click the user's name when it
appears.<p class="p">Alternatively, you can open a user's profile
from one of their tickets.</p>
</li>
<li class="li">Click the User options menu in the upper right, then select
<strong class="ph b">Merge into another user</strong>.<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_yjv_cty_fzb__image_zjx_qfp_sgb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/merge_user_command_new.png" width="300"></p>
</li>
<li class="li">Enter the user's name and all users that match what you entered
are displayed. Select the correct user and then click
<strong class="ph b">Merge</strong>.<p class="p"><img class="image img-screenshot" id="topic_yjv_cty_fzb__image_jxx_cgp_sgb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/merge_user_new.png" width="600"></p>
</li>
<li class="li">When prompted, click <strong class="ph b">Confirm and Merge</strong> to confirm the
merge. If you want to cancel the merge, close the window without
clicking <strong class="ph b">Confirm and Merge</strong>.</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title4" class="topic nested1" id="topic_l3l_dnr_l3">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title4">Understanding how user data is merged</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">When you merge one user account into another, the tickets owned by the user
account being merged become the tickets of the user that account was merged
into and the data in each user profile is combined. The following table
describes how user profile data is handled as a result of a merge. The user
being merged is referred to as the <em class="ph i">merging user</em> and the target of the
merge is referred to as the <em class="ph i">receiving user</em>. In general, the merging
user will lose all data, except for tickets and email identities. The
merging user's account is also <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408821737498#topic_vcv_yjh_xcc" target="_blank">queued for permanent deletion</a>
following the merge.</p>
<div class="p">
<div class="tablenoborder">
<table border="1" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" class="table" frame="border" id="topic_l3l_dnr_l3__table_ms3_hnr_l3" rules="all" summary="">
<colgroup>
<col style="width:23.04147465437788%">
<col style="width:76.95852534562212%">
</colgroup>
<thead class="thead" style="text-align:left;">
<tr class="row">
<th class="entry nocellnorowborder" id="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">User ticket and profile data</th>
<th class="entry cell-norowborder" id="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Merge results</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Tickets</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">All of the merging user's requested tickets
are now requested by the receiving user. CCs are
treated similarly for non-archived tickets.<div class="note attention">
<span class="attentiontitle"></span> Tickets that are part of the
merge, including archived and closed tickets, show
the update in their <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408829602970" target="_blank">ticket events
log</a>.</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Phone number</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Merging user's number is added as a second
number in the receiving user's profile</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Direct Line</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's value is not affected by
merge.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Primary email</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's value is not affected by
merge.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Secondary email</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">All secondary email addresses are maintained,
merging user's email is added as an additional
secondary email address.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Language</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's value is not affected by
merge.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Time Zone</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's value is not affected by
merge.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Organization</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's value is not affected by
merge. If multiple organizations are enabled in
the receiving account, all organizations will be
merged. If multiple organizations are not enabled
and there is no original organization only one
will be merged. Tickets aren't automatically
updated and may maintain old organization
values.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Tags</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Merging user's tags are lost.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Details</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Merging user's details are lost.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Notes</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Merging user's notes are lost.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Picture</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's value is not affected by
merge.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry nocellnorowborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">User fields</td>
<td class="entry cell-norowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Receiving user's fields remain intact.
Merging user's fields are lost.</td>
</tr>
<tr class="row">
<td class="entry row-nocellborder" headers="d88e185" style="vertical-align:top;">Help Center contributions</td>
<td class="entry cellrowborder" headers="d88e188" style="vertical-align:top;">Votes, subscriptions, community posts, and
comments on articles and posts in Help Center
still exist and are visible, but they are lost
(they don't become associated with the target
user). </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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