When should you merge or link duplicate records?

Duplicate records combine into a single master record during merge.

However, some parties can't merge for functional or legal reasons. For example, you can't merge duplicate records from different business units or geographical regions for certain bank operations. In these scenarios, you can create a link between duplicate records instead of merging them.

A link doesn't change the party and the associated child entities, such as addresses, contact points, and relationships. It also doesn't affect the transactional processing of the record. A link is a separate record in the data model, and has its own registry ID. The records remain active in links.