Automatic deduplication on CommunityAutomatic deduplication on Community

The automatic deduplication process on Community has the following stages for all content types:

1. Identification: The system processes a list of records to identify duplicates based on a set of rules. Identification happens incrementally, that is, whenever there is an update to the records, the system only processes the updated records. Identification rules differ per content type.
2. Validation: The system validates the duplicates based on a set of rules. Validation rules differ per content type.
3. Merge target identification: The system identifies which item to keep as the target. This is the item that other items will be merged into.
4. Merge: The system merges the source record into the target record based on a set of rules. The default rules are the following:
   1. For fields containing a single value, the system uses the value in the target field and discards the value in the source field. If the target field is empty, then the system uses the value in the source field. If either the source or the target field contains a Boolean value that is true, then the value of the target field is true.
   2. For fields containing multiple values, the system appends the values from the source field to the values in the target field.
5. Logging: Job logs contain details on the merge operations.
6. Maintenance: Once merge operations are complete, changes or additions to records become subject to a new sequence of identification, validation, and merge. If a record is only available in one Pure client, and it is removed from that Pure client, then the system removes it from Community. However, the system only removes merged records from Community if each source record is removed from the respective Pure clients. Additional rules apply for certain content types.