Duplicate Matching Settings — Admin Guide

The CE identity-resolution engine scores every candidate match between 0 and 1 and routes it by tier:

Tier	When	What happens
Auto	A deterministic key matches (normalized email, E.164 phone, exact name + DOB) or the score is at/above the auto-link threshold	Treated as the same person — shown as an exact duplicate on forms; import offers update instead of create
Review	The score falls between the review band floor and the auto-link threshold and at least one corroborating field matches (referral source, DOB, or ZIP)	Parked in the duplicate review queue for a human decision — never auto-merged
None	Below the floor, or no corroborating field	Treated as a new person

Where to configure

Open Community Engagement → Settings and find Duplicate matching & merge (org-admin only, ce.admin):

Auto-link threshold — default 0.95. Raising it makes auto-linking stricter: pairs that scored between the old and new values move to the review queue instead. Lowering it is not recommended below 0.9 for patient-adjacent data.
Review band floor — default 0.70. Raising it shrinks the review queue (fewer borderline pairs); lowering it widens the net. The floor must stay below the auto-link threshold (enforced).
Merge undo window (hours) — default 72. How long after a merge the Undo merge action stays available. 0 disables undo entirely.

Changes take effect immediately — thresholds are read at match time, not cached or baked into a deploy.

Probable matches never auto-merge, at any threshold. The review queue is the only path to a merge, and every merge requires the ce.contacts.merge permission (granted to org admins by default — extend via role permissions if intake leads should work the queue).
Merges are reversible and audited. Every merge writes a merge-log entry (with a full snapshot for undo) and appears on both contacts’ audit timelines. Records are tombstoned, never deleted.
Dismissals are durable. A pair dismissed in the review queue will not be re-queued by future scans, imports, or syncs.
Import and sync use the same engine. CSV import routes every row through the matcher; exact matches offer update existing in the import wizard’s duplicate step. The HubSpot sync program (CE-75+) resolves through the same identity map, so external systems cannot create duplicates.

Two queries worth keeping an eye on after enabling merge tooling:

Duplicate rate — distinct contacts sharing a normalized email or E.164 phone within your org (target: < 1% after 60 days).
Queue throughput — share of review-queue candidates resolved (linked, dismissed, or merged) within 14 days (target: ≥ 80%).