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.
Requirements and considerations for merging end user accounts
- Both accounts are for end users, not admins or agents.
- 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.
- Each of the accounts to be merged have 10,000 tickets or less.
- 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 either of the end user accounts.
- Merging end user accounts can't be undone. Make sure to select the correct user accounts.
- 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.
Merging duplicate end user accounts
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.
- In Support, click the
Customers icon (
) in the sidebar.
- In the Search bar, enter the name of the user you want to
merge in the search box and click the user's name when it
appears.
Alternatively, you can open a user's profile from one of their tickets.
- Click the User options menu in the upper right, then select
Merge into another user.
- Enter the user's name and all users that match what you entered
are displayed. Select the correct user and then click
Merge.
- When prompted, click Confirm and Merge to confirm the merge. If you want to cancel the merge, close the window without clicking Confirm and Merge.
Understanding how user data is merged
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 merging user and the target of the merge is referred to as the receiving user. In general, the merging user will lose all data, except for tickets and email identities. The merging user's account is also queued for permanent deletion following the merge.
User ticket and profile data | Merge results |
---|---|
Tickets | All of the merging user's requested tickets
are now requested by the receiving user. CCs are
treated similarly for non-archived tickets.
Tickets that are part of the
merge, including archived and closed tickets, show
the update in their ticket events
log.
|
Phone number | Merging user's number is added as a second number in the receiving user's profile |
Direct Line | Receiving user's value is not affected by merge. |
Primary email | Receiving user's value is not affected by merge. |
Secondary email | All secondary email addresses are maintained, merging user's email is added as an additional secondary email address. |
Language | Receiving user's value is not affected by merge. |
Time Zone | Receiving user's value is not affected by merge. |
Organization | 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. |
Tags | Merging user's tags are lost. |
Details | Merging user's details are lost. |
Notes | Merging user's notes are lost. |
Picture | Receiving user's value is not affected by merge. |
User fields | Receiving user's fields remain intact. Merging user's fields are lost. |
External IDs | Merging user's external IDs are lost. |
Help Center contributions | 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). |
16 comments
Maxim ZD - Agent
Hello,
You can also try this app:
https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/smart-end-users-merge/
0
New Atlas Tech Support
Maxim ZD - Agent smart-end-users-merge looks great, but attempting to install it leads me to the following under Apps & Integrations (I can't leave feedback there, as I can't install it):
0
Maxim ZD - Agent
Hi @New Atlas Tech Support,
Please try the following link:
https://www.zendesk.com/apps/support/275316/smart-end-users-merge/
Best Regards,
Maxim
0
Andrew Chu
Hi Zendesk,
Regarding the below answer for impacts on tickets, can you please clarify if this will apply to the historical/closed tickets of the merging user or not?
We came across a situation where only the active tickets (non-closed) are being moved, and not the closed tickets. Could you explain why?
0
DJ Buenavista Jr.
Thank you for reaching out to Zendesk Support.
In regards to your question, once a ticket has been closed it cannot be edited/modified in any way. Only follow-ups can be created from closed tickets. Ticket properties on closed tickets cannot be changed, furthermore, business rules such as triggers and automations do not act on closed tickets at all.
For more information about this, you can check our article About the inborn system ticket rules.
Thank you and have a wonderful day ahead!
Kind regards,
0
Andriana G
Hello, is it possible to merge two *agent" duplicate accounts? Technically his role is Contributor. Thanks
0
Dwight Bussman
heyO Andriana G
For security reasons, merge is restricted to end-users. In the article above you'll see "Administrator and agent user accounts cannot be merged." As such, you'd need to make those users end-users in order to merge them.
Alternately, if what you're looking to do is get the email address from one user added as a secondary address on another, you could edit the email on the first user to something else, thereby releasing the old address which could then be added to the first user.
0
Khanh (Toby) Ly
Is it possible to merge users in bulk? or through a process that can address multiple users? We have a lot of contacts created through talk tickets that are missing emails, but some of them have email contacts already. Merging them 1 by 1 seems inefficient, and I'm hoping there is a better way.
0
Jeff C
Hello Khanh,
There isn't a bulk merge user option via the UI or via any API endpoints. The only way I can think to achieve merging users in an efficient and fast way is to script the Merge End users endpoint so it runs continuously until all merges have been done.
We do not have samples though as this is considered custom code and would suggest seeking assistance with someone familiar in scripting.
0
Viktor Hristovski
Hello all,
we have our internal employees using Zendesk to submit various tickets as end users. Our company uses okta to sign into Zendesk and we use our company email (first.lastname)@ourcompany.com.
Recently we merged with another company and the employees are sending emails from their company email , which creates tickets for them as first.lastname@newcompany.com. Issue is that if they log into Zendesk Support via okta to view their tickets, they will not see their other tickets there.
Is there a way to automatically merge users (we have over 1000 and there are new coming ) so that if someone submits email from first.lastname@newcompany.com, it will be created under the (first.lastname)@ourcompany.com account?
Thank you
Viktor
0
Gabriel Manlapig
As of the moment, there's no native way to do this. But, you may check-out Zendesk Marketplace if there are app available for it. You may also check this: Smart End-Users Merge
This is a third-party developed app though so I am not sure if it worked the same way as you prefer. Thank you!
0
David Tull
After merging users, is it typical to see "Permanently deleted user" as the name for any ticket interactions on the merging user's activity?
0
Arianne Batiles
Hi David Tull
I'd like to take a closer look at this scenario; hence, I have sent you an email where we can continue working together. Kindly check your inbox for updates. Thanks!
0
Calvin Ratsavong
Here's how I accomplished bulk user merges -
I can post the scripts I created here if anyone wants to take a look.
3
Hugo Sanchez
Hi Calvin! Could you please post the scripts?? Thanks!
0
Chad Susa (Gravity CX - Zendesk Partner)
Hi Arianne Batiles
Could you let us know the outcome of your investigation with David Tull. We are also seeing occurences of the 'Permanently deleted user' on tickets with users that have since been merged.
We can't figure why.
Many thanks
Chad
0