Contact Matching and Duplicate Prevention in MIS Exports

When exporting data from Applicaa to a school’s MIS, one of the key priorities is ensuring that duplicate contacts are not created. This guide explains the contact matching process.

We aim to accurately match new data with existing records in the MIS where a contact already exists as a parent of a sibling already at the school. This is essential for maintaining clean data and for features like sibling linking, which depend on shared contacts.

 

Step-by-Step Matching Process

Across all MIS integrations (SIMS, Bromcom, Arbor, iSAMS, Ed:gen) we implement a fuzzy matching process before any contacts are exported from Applicaa to the MIS. This works as follows:

• Initial Fuzzy Matching:
  
  Before export the contact, we compare incoming contact data from Applicaa against existing contact records in the MIS using the following fields:
  
  
  • First name
    
    
  • Last name
    
    
  • Title
    
    
  • Address
    
    
  • Phone number
    
    

This is a fuzzy match, meaning it accounts for variations (e.g. “Jon” vs “John”, “St.” vs “Street” and common “nicknames”).

• Review Potential Matches:
  
  Schools are presented with potential matches, allowing them to confirm whether the incoming contact already exists or is a new individual.

• Decision Options:
  
  
  • ✅ Link to an existing MIS contact — avoids duplication and merges the A+ contact to the MIS contact.
    
    
  • ❌ Unlink — treat as a new contact if they are not the same person; this creates the contact as a new record in the MIS.
    
    During the decision making process we also display:
    
    
    • The siblings declared in Applicaa
      
      
    • The students currently linked to the contact in the MIS
      
      Showing this side-by-side helps schools make informed decisions about contact matching.

 

Why this Matters: Sibling Link

• In most MIS platforms, sibling relationships are created when multiple students share the same contact.
  
  
• By preventing duplicate contact creation, our process automatically preserves or creates sibling links within the MIS.