Definition: Merging of two or more records into one record. The destination record is the record that stays, and the source record(s) are merged into the destination and then deleted.
This is what happens when records are merged:
If the destination has a value in a specific field, this field is kept as is and the values in the source records are ignored. In other words the destination record has priority on field values when there is a conflict. This includes many-to-many fields.
Attachments are merged so that attachments from all merged records are listed/linked to in one record.
Links TO these records are merged. For example when merging two customers, all the contacts belonging to these two customers will be associated with one customer.
Other Issues:
The user merging the record must have two security permissions: Merge permission on the source records (which will be deleted), AND change permission on the destination record (because some fields may be updated).
A special history entry is added to the destination record listing which records were merged into this record.
Histories are also merged but the merged entries are marked as merged.
Synchronization takes into account merged records.
There are three ways to merge records:
Inside the data form, using the merge toolbar button. The record inside the form is the source and a window will popup asking for the destination.
Inside a browser list of records, by selecting a single record and using the merge context menu or button. The selected record is the source and a window will popup asking for the destination.
Inside a browser list of records, by selecting multiple records and using the merge context menu or button. The first selected record in the list is the destination and all the rest of the selected records are sources. Note that if the first record is not supposed to be the destination, the user can either re-sort the list or use the previous two methods for merging records instead.