Resolving data conflicts assure your zkipster Audience contact database is kept up to date and with accurate information. These data conflicts may arise during new contact imports, updating existing contacts or due to integrations syncing conflicting data. This article explains what data conflicts are, how to identify them and how to resolve them.
What are Data Conflicts in Audience
When managing contact information in zkipster Audience, data updates may occur when importing or syncing records. Sometimes, the new data being imported does not match the existing data for a specific field.
For example, a contact's 'First Name' field is originally set up as “John”, but a new data import or sync provides the first name for that contact as “Jon Arthur.” The system now has two different information for the same field and it will flag this to you until you tell the system what is the correct 'First Name' value that should be set up for that contact.
Similarly, unique fields (like an email address or ID number) may start out empty in a guest's profile. If an update includes new data for that field, the system checks whether the value is unique before applying the change. This ensures that duplicate or conflicting information is not mistakenly added to the database.
This occurs when the integration between Events and Audience is setup and the setting that enables updates from Events to be carried over to Audience is enabled.
This allows any updates in guest profiles from Events to be transferred over to Audience Contact profiles. When updates occur within zkipster Events that do not match the original information in their Audience contact profile, data conflicts emerge.
Identifying Data Conflicts
To find out if your contact list has data conflicts, open the 'Contacts' section from the left hand side menu.
From the 'Contacts' dashboard, the number of contacts with unresolved data conflicts will display at the top of the list:
You can also filter your contact list by those that are affected by data conflicts.
Using the filter option 'Has Conflicts' to only display contacts with unresolved data conflicts.
Resolving Data Conflicts via Contact Profile
To resolve the conflicted data, click into the contact profile that you identified with the data conflicts.
From the top of the contact profile, you can click on the 'Resolve Conflicts' to be able to edit the fields with conflicting data. Alternatively, click on the 'Pencil' icon to edit the contact profile.
Once you locate the field, clicking on top of it allows you to select which data value should be saved.
if the field type allows for alternatives (meaning you can include multiple values, such as multiple email addresses or multiple organizations), the system will automatically create the alternative entry, so you have the option to save both the original data value and the new data value. But you can also delete the value if you do not want to create an alternative value for that field.
if the field type does not allow for alternatives (meaning only one value for that field can be associated with the same contact, such as 'First Name'), clicking on the field with the conflicting data will display a dropdown with all conflicting values. Select the one you want to associate with the contact, while the other values will be deleted.
Dismiss All Conflicts: marks all conflicts as resolved but does not write any new data into the contact.
Bulk Dismissing Data Conflicts
You can bulk select the contact profiles with data conflicts and dismiss conflicts for all selected profiles.
You are unable to bulk resolve conflicts as resolving conflicts is contact profile specific and needs to be done by clicking into the specific contact profile.
