A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a HighLevel Workflow for Automated Merge Issue Detection

In the dynamic world of CRM management, particularly within platforms like HighLevel, preventing and proactively addressing contact merge issues is crucial for data integrity and operational efficiency. Manual detection is not only time-consuming but highly prone to human error, leading to inconsistent customer data, misdirected communications, and ultimately, damaged client relationships. This guide outlines a robust, automated workflow using HighLevel to detect potential merge issues before they escalate, ensuring your data remains clean and your operations streamlined. By leveraging strategic automation, you can maintain a single source of truth, empowering your sales, marketing, and support teams with accurate information at all times.

Step 1: Identify and Isolate Merge Triggers in HighLevel

The first step in building a resilient merge issue detection system is to pinpoint the common triggers that lead to contact duplication within HighLevel. These often include new lead capture forms, CRM imports, API integrations, or manual entries where a contact might already exist with a slightly different email or phone number. Begin by auditing your existing lead generation and data entry points. For each identified trigger, determine the unique identifiers your system should prioritize, such as email address or phone number. Your goal is to establish a primary key strategy. Document these triggers and their associated data inputs, as this understanding will form the foundation for your automation rules, allowing you to design precise checks that flag potential duplicates the moment new data enters your system, rather than waiting for manual discovery.

Step 2: Implement Custom Fields for Tracking Potential Duplicates

To effectively flag and manage potential merge issues, you’ll need dedicated custom fields within HighLevel. Create a custom field, perhaps named “Potential Merge Flag,” as a Boolean (Yes/No) type. Additionally, consider a text field named “Merge Issue Details” where automation can populate information about why a contact was flagged (e.g., “Duplicate email found,” “Similar phone number”). These fields are vital for visibility and actionability. When a potential merge is detected, your workflow will update these fields, making it immediately clear to your team which contacts require review. This proactive tagging ensures that no potentially problematic contact slips through the cracks, allowing for prompt investigation and resolution before data becomes irrecoverably fragmented.

Step 3: Design HighLevel Workflows for Duplicate Detection Logic

Within HighLevel’s workflow builder, create a new workflow that triggers whenever a new contact is created or an existing contact is updated. The core of this workflow will involve “If/Else” conditions that compare key identifiers of the new/updated contact against your existing database. For instance, an “If” condition might check if “Contact Email” exists for another contact. Another condition could analyze phone numbers with minor variations (e.g., area code missing). Leverage HighLevel’s native search capabilities or, for more complex scenarios, integrate with a tool like Make.com to perform advanced data matching. The goal is to build logic that proactively identifies patterns indicative of a duplicate, such as matching email addresses or very similar phone numbers, flagging them for human review.

Step 4: Configure Alerts and Internal Notifications for Your Team

Once a potential merge issue is detected and the custom fields are updated, the next critical step is to notify the relevant team members immediately. Within your HighLevel workflow, set up internal notifications. This could involve sending an email to a specific operations or data integrity team, assigning a task to a designated user to review the flagged contact, or even posting a message to an internal Slack channel via a webhook integration. The notification should include a direct link to the flagged contact’s profile in HighLevel and a summary of why it was flagged (pulling data from your “Merge Issue Details” custom field). Timely alerts empower your team to act swiftly, preventing the erroneous contact from progressing further into sales or marketing funnels and mitigating downstream data issues.

Step 5: Establish a Review and Resolution Protocol

An automated detection system is only as effective as the human process that supports it. Develop a clear, documented protocol for your team to follow when a potential merge issue is flagged. This protocol should outline steps for reviewing the flagged contact, determining if it is indeed a duplicate, and then performing the necessary actions within HighLevel (e.g., merging contacts, updating data, or marking as not a duplicate). Train your team thoroughly on this process, emphasizing the importance of data accuracy. Regular audits of resolved merge issues can also help refine your detection logic and reduce false positives over time. This crucial human oversight ensures that automated flags lead to correct, timely resolutions, maintaining the integrity of your HighLevel CRM database and preventing data silos.

If you would like to read more, we recommend this article: HighLevel HR & Recruiting: Master Contact Merge Recovery with CRM-Backup