Merging duplicates without losing history

The short answerA merge that loses activity history is worse than the duplicate, because it destroys the evidence that this account already said no. Decide the survivor by rule rather than by hand, confirm that tasks, emails and meetings reparent, run it on ten records and inspect them, then batch the rest with a rollback plan.

The order a safe merge runs in

One, group by domainNot by company name. Names vary by spelling and suffix; domain is the stable key.Changes the count

Two, pick the survivor ruleOldest, most active, or live owner. Written down and applied consistently.Never by eye

Three, test on tenMerge ten, then inspect tasks, emails, meetings, notes and attachments.The step people skip

Four, check reportingRun the key reports before and after. Totals should move predictably.Catches silent loss

Five, batch in wavesWith a checkpoint after each, and a rollback plan that someone has read.Not one big run

Six, block creationOtherwise the backlog refills and you do this again next year.The actual fix

What this looked like in practice

15,000 duplicates merged

On that same rebuild, 15,000 duplicates were merged with activity history preserved on every one. The surviving record was chosen by rule, oldest created date with a live owner, rather than by hand fifteen thousand times.

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Questions

How do we merge duplicates without losing activity history?

Test on ten records first and inspect every child object: tasks, emails, meetings, notes and attachments. Only batch once all of them reparent correctly.

Which record should survive a merge?

Decide by rule rather than by hand. Oldest created date, most activity, or the one with a live owner. Any consistent rule beats a thousand judgment calls.

Should we match on company name or domain?

Domain. Company names vary by spelling, suffix and abbreviation, which is exactly why the duplicates exist.

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How do we handle duplicates without breaking existing records?