Data Deduplication & Merging Guidelines

This article outlines how deduplication works in the Justice Bolt software, including automatic merging criteria and step-by-step instructions for using the Dedupe Tool to manually manage potential duplicates.

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🔧 Deduplication Feature Overview

The Justice Bolt Funder Software includes a powerful Deduplication Tool designed to keep your organization’s data clean and accurate.

What It Does

• Scans your customer and case data nightly

• Identifies potential duplicate entries

• Flags these entries in the Dedupe Tool for manual review and resolution

🔐 How to Access the Dedupe Tool

1. Log in to your Justice Bolt account

2. Click the Gear Icon at the top right corner of the page to open Settings

3. Select Data Admin

4. Click the Deduplication button in the upper-right corner of the Data Admin page

💡 Only Admins and Executives can request access to this feature. If you have either of these permission levels and don’t see it in your account, contact [e-mail] for assistance. If you're not an Admin or Executive user, please reach out to your software Admin or Executive user.

🔍 Automatic Case Merging Criteria

The system uses specific data fields to automatically merge duplicate cases.

✅ Merged Automatically When All Match:

• Plaintiff Name

• Date of Birth (DOB)

• Date of Loss/Incident (DOL)

• Law Firm

• Attorney

🔄 Merged Without DOB if These Match:

If DOB is not available, the system merges if the following fields are identical:

• Name

• Date of Loss (DOL)

• State of Incident

• Case Type

• Law Firm

• Attorney

🚫 No Match? Manual Review Required

If DOB is missing and other fields don’t match exactly, the entry will not be merged automatically and will appear in the Dedupe Tool for review.

💡 The deduplication scan happens every 12 hours (overnight). New or modified duplicates may take up to half a day to show up in the Dedupe Tool.

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On the left-hand side of the screen are the categories that a user can work on deduping. There are indicators as well as how many entries are available for deduping for each category. The screenshot below indicates that there are three entries in the Case category that need to be deduplicated. 

 

For entries that meet the merge criteria:

• Choose the canonical case (the correct version to retain) by clicking the circle toggle

• Check all matching entries to merge

• Click Merge to combine them into the selected case

If entries do not sufficiently match or should be kept separate:

• Click Dismiss to remove them from the dedupe list
  

📘 Final Notes

• Merged entries cannot be undone, so double-check before confirming.

• Dedupe regularly to avoid downstream data conflicts.

• Only users with Admin or Executive privileges can enable or modify access to this feature.