# Lead/Contact Merge Handling

## Overview

When duplicate Leads or Contacts are merged in Salesforce, the surviving record inherits all associated Engagements. If that results in more than one open Activation Engagement, it violates the Integrous Analytics data model—each person should only have one active Sales Journey at a time.

This scenario typically arises when a duplicate record is mistakenly created due to automation/integration issues or manual entry. The second Activation usually should have been created as an Influencing Engagement.

The system automatically resolves these cases to maintain reporting accuracy and data integrity.

## When It Runs

The logic triggers automatically when a Lead-to-Lead or Contact-to-Contact merge results in more than one **Activation Engagement** where:

* Sales Journey Completion Date is blank (Leads/Contacts can have multiple closed Activations)
* AND no Opportunity has an 'Attribution Engagement' relationship to the Activation (the system prioritizes not changing Opportunity Attribution)

{% hint style="warning" %}
⚠️ Activations that are complete or provide Opportunity attribution are never modified.
{% endhint %}

## What It Does

When multiple eligible Activations exist, the system:

* **Selects the Winning Activation**
  * Chooses the one with the earliest Engagement Date
  * This becomes the person's sole Open Activation
* **Consolidates Sales Progression Data**
  * **Stage 1 Date and Owner** on the Winning Activation are unchanged
  * Sets **Stage 2 and 3 Dates and Owners** on the winning Activation from the Activation with the earliest Stage 3 Date
    * If there's a tie, the winner’s dates are preferred; otherwise, selection is random
  * If none of the records have a Stage 3 Date, then it sets **Stage 2 Date and Owner** on the winning Activation from the Activation with the earliest Stage 2 Date
    * If there's a tie, the winner’s dates are preferred; otherwise, selection is random
* **Converts the ‘losing’ Activations to Influencing Engagements**
  * Clears values in fields that are only populated on Activation Engagements
  * This reflects what it likely should have been originally
* **Updates Related Lookups**
  * Updates the Current Activation field on the winning Lead/Contact to point to the winning Activation
  * Updates any Influencing Engagements that had a ‘losing’ Activation as their Activation Parent to use the winner
* **Archives for Auditability**
  * Prior values are stored in the **Archived Activation Info Due to Merge** field

## Limitations

* The logic only runs for **Lead-to-Lead** and **Contact-to-Contact** *merges*
  * **Lead-to-existing-Contact** *conversions* are not yet supported by this feature, and ***can result in the Contact having more than one open Activation***
    * This is a known issue, and a resolution is on the product roadmap
* This logic runs on Salesforce’s **native Lead/Contact merge UI (max 3 records)**
  * ⚠️ Merges performed via data loaders or third-party tools ***may not trigger this logic***
* Manual user selections of the Lead/Contact **Current Activation** during merge are overridden by system logic to ensure data coherence
* As noted above, Contacts can still end up with more than one open Activation if an Opportunity is (or was at the time of the merge) attributed to an Activation in question

## Related Articles

* [Activations vs. Influencing Engagements](/key-concepts/activations-vs.-influencing-engagements.md)
* [Engagement Object Relationships](/onboarding/quick-start-guide.md#engagement-object-relationships)
* [Sales Progression Measurement](/onboarding/quick-start-guide.md#sales-progression-measurement)
* [Opportunity Attribution](/key-concepts/opportunity-attribution.md)


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