If you are not seeing all of the athletes you would expect, or their latest times in your meet entry table, reports, etc., it's likely due to having a duplicate athlete account. In most cases, this can be easily resolved by using our De-duplicate Athletes Tool.
Covered in this Article:
- How SwimTopia matches athlete records during registration
- Why duplicate athlete records are created
- What happens when I merge athletes?
- Merge duplicate athletes and sync their times
- What to do if a name or birth date has a typo
- When the "Season" filter may be useful
- Other ways to identify duplicates
- How to prevent duplicates in the future
How SwimTopia matches athlete records during registration
During registration, SwimTopia automatically syncs an athlete's imported roster and meet result data with the new registration data, matching them by their name, birthday (if captured), and competition category (when present).
Why duplicate athlete records are created
Sometimes athletes are registered with a different name (i.e., nickname), or misspelled name, or a different birthday than what was imported or entered the previous season. In these cases, SwimTopia will create a new athlete record instead of inadvertently overwriting a possibly unrelated athlete.
For example, Jenny's previous season results are imported as:
- First name: Jenny
- Preferred name:
- Middle name:
- Last name: Smith
- Birthday: Jan 1, 2000
But her new registration looks like this:
- First name: Jennifer
- Preferred name: Jenny
- Middle name: Lynn
- Last name: Smith
- Birthday: Jan 1, 2000
The system cannot assume they are the same athletes but suspects this could be the case, so an additional record is created and the two are listed in the De-duplicate Athletes screen (shown below) for a team admin to decide and merge the records.
What happens when I merge athletes?
When you merge an athlete’s data, you end up with one “version” of the athlete with all their time history and family relationships intact. No data is lost.
Merge athlete duplicates and sync their times
The athlete de-duplication tool will allow you to review and merge potential duplicate athlete records.
You can reach this tool from the "Manage duplicate athletes" link on your People page, or by going to Settings > Data Maintenance > De-duplicate Athletes.
➧ From People:
➧ From Settings:
Screenshot from: https://demo-dolphins.swimtopia.com/manage/data_maintenance/dedupe_athletes?season_id=40300
In the first example above, both name and birthdate do not match. The reason the name does not match is because one form listed a preferred/nickname and the other form filled out in the same season did not. In this case, you may need to contact the parents to determine the correct birthdate before you can merge, so you could also ask them which name format they want.
In the second example, the names and competition categories are an exact match, but the birthdates don't match. In that case, you should also contact the parents to determine the correct birthdate.
Select the radio button for the correct record (unless already selected) and click on Merge button.
➧ Is this a USA Swimming Athlete?
If one account does not have a USA Swimming membership you can merge the non-USA Swimming account into the USA Swimming account, but if they are both USA Swimming accounts, you'll need to disconnect each athlete from USA Swimming and then you can merge their accounts.
➞ See how to resolve this issue in the USA Swimming Account Management article.
What to do if a name or birth date has a typo
Use the search feature in People to find the athlete with the typo in their information and correct it (so it matches the “good” info). Then the duplicate athlete feature will be able to find the two versions of the athlete and properly merge them.
When the "Season" filter may be useful
The de-duplicate athlete feature is season-centric, meaning it only considers athletes in the selected season when searching to find potential duplicates.
The potential duplicates can come from other seasons, but at least one athlete from the potential duplicate pair must have an affiliation with the selected season. Some teams experience this when they import a historical roster or results import with duplicates.
If the athlete is not showing up in your current season's duplicate list, this is when you can use the Season filter at the top to find which season the athlete was duplicated to merge the records.
Screenshot from: https://demo-dolphins.swimtopia.com/manage/data_maintenance/dedupe_athletes?season_id=40300
Other ways to identify duplicates
Some athlete accounts are just different enough that they won't show up on the Data Maintenance tool. Here are other ways duplicate athletes can be identified:
- Often parents will point out right away when their athlete's past results times or past season affiliations with your team do not show up in their account.
- Admins can also identify possible duplicated athletes by looking for similar names in the "Years On Team Report" in Reports. This report lists the cumulative number of years on your team, even if an athlete skips a season. Again, Jenny Smith might show 4 years on your team, but Jennifer Smith will only have 1.
- Another way to accomplish this is to review the ”Rookie Athlete Report” with the “Non-returning Athlete Report”. Obviously, an athlete couldn’t be on both.
- Compare those two profiles in People to determine if you have an unsynced athlete.
How to prevent duplicates in the future
If the athlete information received from another system in the historical roster or results imports, etc. is different from that in SwimTopia, you will most likely have duplicate athletes created in your site.
To fix that and avoid future duplicates from occurring in your SwimTopia site, once the athletes are merged in SwimTopia, export a roster from Reports > Athlete Roster. Import the roster into the other system and address any duplicate athletes there.
Likewise, you can export the Meet Roster from your meet along with your Meet Entries and load that roster into the other system to deal with any duplicate athletes there before loading your entries. Once both systems have the same athlete information, you’re all set!
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