Results of the Member Merge

This topic describes how data from all the records are merged into the remaining (active) record when you perform the merge:

• Points. Siebel Loyalty adds up the Available, Lifetime and Qualifying Points of all members, and it gives the total to the remaining member.

• Last Transaction. Siebel Loyalty compares the dates when the last transaction was processed for all members, and it uses the latest date as the last transaction of the remaining member.

• Contact Campaigns, Activities, Transactions, Vouchers, Service Requests, Statements, and Membership Cards. Siebel Loyalty gives the Contact Campaigns, Activities, Transactions, Vouchers, Service Requests, Statements, and Membership Cards of all the members to the remaining member. Siebel Loyalty combines the transaction history of all the members into a single transaction history and combines the service request history of all the members into a single service request history.

• Tiers. Siebel Loyalty allows the remaining member to retain the highest tier or the two tiers. In addition, the member's tier is recalculated based upon the new combined point total at the next regularly scheduled tier recalculation.

• Tier History. Siebel Loyalty gives the combined tier histories of all the members to the remaining member. This means that the tier history shows overlapping tiers in the same tier class for the same date.

• Contact-Level Information. For information stored at the Contact level, such as the Travel Profile:

  • If the same contact was used for all memberships, then Siebel Loyalty keeps the remaining member’s information.

  • If different contacts were used and these are individual memberships, then Siebel Loyalty keeps the remaining member’s information.

  • If different contacts were used and these are household or account memberships or an individual membership being merged into an account or household membership, then Siebel Loyalty adds all contacts to the remaining membership. The user decides which of these contacts to keep.

• Enrolled Promotions. The enrolled promotions of all members are combined.

Member Attributes

During the member merge process, member attributes are merged but member field attributes are not. By default, the member merge has the following results for member attributes:

• If member attributes cannot be added together, then Siebel Loyalty keeps the attribute value of the remaining member. For example, this applies to member attributes with values such as yes or no.

• If member attributes can be added together, for example, numeric totals, then they are added.

You can specify how member attributes are added by selecting an option in the Merge Action field of the Loyalty Program Administration screen, Program Level Attributes, Member Attributes view. For example:

• If Sum is selected in the Merge Action field for this member attribute, then the merge sums the values for that attribute for all the members and gives the total to the remaining member. This feature is useful, for example, if there is a member attribute to store the number of miles traveled by a member and you want the merge to sum the miles given by all the members and give the total to the remaining member.

• If Standard is selected in the Merge Action field, then the merge gives the remaining member the same value that the remaining member had for this attribute before the merge. This setting is useful, for example, when the attribute is text for which an operation such as Sum has no meaning.

The values that are available in the Merge Action field depend on the data type of the attributes, as shown in the following table.

Data Type	Values for Merge Action Field
Date	Earliest. Replaces date with the earliest date for the attribute. Latest. Replaces date with the latest date for the attribute. Standard. Keeps the date for the attribute that the remaining member had before the merge.
Integer, Number	Max. Replaces number with the maximum number for the attribute. Min. Replaces number with the minimum number for the attribute. Sum. Replaces number with the sum of the numbers for the attribute for all members. Standard. Keeps the number for the attribute that the remaining member had before the merge.
String	Standard. Keeps the value for the string that the remaining member had before the merge.

Changing the Results of the Merge by Setting User Properties

The following results of the merge can be changed by using Siebel Tools to change the user properties for the LOY Member business component:

• Delete Merged Tiers. If this user property is set to Y, then the remaining member retains the highest tier of the two tiers. If it is set to N, then the remaining member keeps all tiers of all merged members.

• Delete Merged Contacts. If this user property is set to Y, then the remaining member keeps only the contacts that the remaining member had before the merge. If it is set to N, then the remaining member keeps all Contact records of all merged members.

• Delete Non-Qualified Merged Promotions. If this user property is set to Y, then the remaining member keeps only the promotions that the remaining member was enrolled in before the merge. If it is set to N, then the remaining member keeps all promotions of all merged members.