You may have created an extra student profile accidentally, perhaps after importing a CTF or adding an applicant and not matching them to an existing student profile.
You can identify and resolve suspected duplicate records for:
- student duplicates in preparation for DfE School Census and Welsh PLASC census (shown below)
- guardian duplicates to improve communication to guardians and save costs on avoiding to send multiple text messages to the same guardians
- staff duplicates in preparation for DfE School Workforce Census and Welsh SWAC census
Please note that once a profile merge or deletion has been carried out this cannot be undone, so be sure to carefully check the profiles you intend to merge or delete before carrying out the operation.
Permissions
You will need the School: General Admin: Administer permission to merge or delete student profiles. If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.
Merging or deleting duplicate student profiles
When the system has been able to identify a duplicate student, everyone with the School: General Admin: Administer permission (your admin team, Head Teachers and SLT by default) sees this in their To Do list on their homepage.
To resolve a duplicate student, click an unresolved suspected student duplicate item in your To Do list, or go to School > Data > Data Quality > Suspected Duplicates > Students.
On the Suspected Duplicates page for students, you see Unresolved and Resolved duplicates, and any merge requests Pending Approval by toggling between the three tabs with the same names, respectively.
- On the Unresolved tab, Arbor colour-codes potential matches based on how many fields on both profiles are the same. Duplicates marked in red are most likely to be a match, and green duplicates are least likely to be a match. Clicking on a suspected duplicate opens a slide over, where you can see exactly which pieces of data match in the Comparison table.
- The Resolved tab shows an overview of previous suspected duplicates and their resolutions. Refer to the Resolution column to see if the duplicate record was resolved by merging two profiles, deleting a profile or keeping two profiles separate.
- The Pending Approval tab shows any duplicate mergers that have been requested by a member of staff but still need final approval from a second member of staff.
Choosing whether to delete or merge duplicates
You can use the Comparison Table to help you decide which profile to keep, and use the grey Go to Student A and Go to Student B buttons to compare the data on student profiles with a few clicks.
When merging, blank fields in the profile you choose to keep will be filled by information from the merged profile, and if conflicting information exists for a field, the information from the profile you choose to keep will be kept.
Within Arbor, more guidance on which to choose can be found by clicking the red Which resolution should I use? box underneath the Resolution dropdown.
Typically, you will be presented with the options below. However, you might see fewer options if one or both profiles cannot be deleted due to attendance marks, more on this in the next section:
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Merge Student B into Student A* - This option merges data from Student B in your comparison table into Student A. This means:
- Any blank fields in Student A will be filled with information from Student B.
- Any blank fields in Student A will be filled with information from Student B.
- Any fields in Student A which are not blank will not be overwritten by information from Student B.
If conflicting information exists for a field, the information from Student A will be kept. - After this, Student B is deleted.
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Merge Student A into Student B* - This option merges information from Student A into Student B. This means:
- Any blank fields in Student B will be filled with information from Student A.
- Any fields in Student B which are not blank will not be overwritten by information from Student A.
- If conflicting information exists for a field, the information from Student B will be kept.
- After this, Student A is deleted.
- Delete Student A* - This option deletes Student A entirely.
- Delete Student B*- This option deletes Student B entirely.
- Keep records separate - This option keeps Student A and Student B as separate profiles - they can be merged or deleted later if you change your mind, but the suspected duplicate will move to the Resolved tab.
*Once a profile is merged or deleted, it cannot be undone. Please double-check the profiles before proceeding.
Deleting or merging a profile that has attendance marks
You won't be able to delete or merge any students who have attendance marks logged on their profile:
- If neither students have attendance marks, you'll be able to choose which profile to merge with the other or choose to delete one.
- If one student has attendance marks, you'll only be able to merge the profile without attendance marks into the one with attendance marks or delete the profile without attendance marks.
- If both students have attendance marks, you will only see the option to keep the records separate.
If you need to delete any student's attendance marks to enable a merge or deletion, you can do this following these instructions.
Resolving a Duplicate
On the Unresolved tab:
- Click on a duplicate to decide how to merge or delete the profiles on the slide over.
- Set a resolution by using the Resolution dropdown
- Click the green Resolve button on then slide over
- Click the next green Resolve button on the pop-up
If the resolution you chose was Deletions and Keeping Records Separate, the suspected duplicate record can now be found on the Resolved tab.
If you choose a Merger, you are shown a second slide-over to request approval for the merger from another staff member.
Sending a request to merge duplicate students
Any mergers must be approved by another staff member in your school who also has the School: General Admin: Administer permission. On the slide-over:
- Select which staff member you would like to request approval from using the dropdown
- Confirm your choice using the tick boxes
- Click Request approval
You will then see a message that an email has been sent to the approver. Please note: both you and the approving staff member must have an email address on their profile in order for the approval and resolution emails to be sent.
The merge request will then move to the Pending approval tab until it is rejected or approved by the staff member.
You cannot mark a request you made as approved yourself, but you can mark the request as not approved to reject the resolution, for example, if you selected the wrong one. Do this by:
- Going to the Pending Approval tab
- Clicking the Merge Request
- Entering a reason into the required Note box
- Hitting the orange Not Approved button
- Clicking Yes on the Reject Resolution pop-up
Please note: this will not recall the email to the other staff member.
Approving or rejecting a request to merge duplicate students
The staff member who has been asked to confirm or reject a student merger will receive an email and notification in Arbor (the Bell Icon on the left side of Arbor) with a link to the duplicate on the Pending Approval tab of the School > Data > Data Quality > Suspected Duplicates > Students.
On the Pending Approval tab, they can then choose whether to approve the merge or not.
To approve a request:
- Click on the request
- Check the student details on the slide over
- Click the Approval Confirmation check boxes (this is required)
- Click the green Approve button
To reject a merger:
- Click the request
- Enter a Note (this field is required)
- Click the orange Not approved button
If they approve the merge, the profiles will be merged, the requester will get a notification and an email, and the duplicate flag will move to the Resolved tab.
If they do not approve the merge, the requester will get a notification and an email, and the duplicates will move back to the Unresolved tab.
Mergers from student profiles
Suspected duplicates can also be merged from student profiles, using the red View & Resolve Suspected Duplicate button on the right-hand side of their profiles. Clicking this button opens the same slide-over as clicking a suspected duplicate from the Data Quality dashboard does.
This button only shows for suspected duplicate profiles, so you can use this to identify whethere a profile is potentially a duplicate too.
Deleting student profiles
You won't be able to delete a profile that has attendance marks. If you need to delete any student's attendance marks to enable a deletion, you can do this by following these instructions.
Deleting an applicant who has never been enrolled
If the student is an applicant and hasn't been enrolled in your school (such as if they have deferred their place), you may want to remove these from Arbor.
Note: Please be advised that Arbor cannot provide guidance on the best course of action for recording and retaining student or applicant records. For further guidance, please contact the DfE.
If you have determined that removing the student is the correct course of action, you can delete them yourself from their student profile.
Type the student's name into your search box and hit Enter on your keyboard or click View all results in the dropdown to go to the Global search. You must hit Enter or View all results, as the results in the preview only show enrolled students (which an applicant won't be).
On the results page, click the student profile that has a note of 'Applicant'.
On their student profile:
- Select Enrolment from the left-hand menu
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on their Application
- In the slide over, click the orange Edit button in the top right corner.
- Click the red Delete Application and Student button.
- Confirm the deletion on the pop-up with the red Yes, delete Application and Student
Deleting a student who is not a duplicate
This process can be used to delete students before the end of the system-set data retention period.
We would usually only recommend deleting a student who never actually attended your school. For example, if they never arrived and had attendance marks put in by mistake, or there are duplicate profiles of existing students that you need to remove.
Step 1 - Wait until the censuses have passed
If you do wish to delete a student earlier, ensure that you are waiting until all censuses that would need to include this student have passed. If the student in question does not need to be included in any census returns, move to the next step.
Step 2 - Examinations
Check if the student has been entered into any Examinations this academic year. If so, wait until the next academic year has started, or you won't be able to delete them.
Step 3 - Remove any attendance marks
To delete a student, you'll need to make sure they haven't had any attendance marks recorded on their profile. If they do, you'll need to remove the marks using these instructions.
Step 4 - Delete the student
Scroll down to the bottom of their student profile to the Admin Function section and select Delete Student.
Select whether to also delete any guardians who are only linked to this student's profile, and confirm that you understand the consequences. You can then delete the student using the red Delete Student button and then confirm the deletion on the pop-up.
FAQ
Why is only the 'keep records separate' option appearing?
This happens when both profiles have attendance marks recorded. Student profiles cannot be merged if they both contain attendance marks.
Marks will need to be added to the profile that you want to keep, and removed from the profile you want to remove. For more information on removing attendance marks, see our guidance here.
Can we delete profiles in bulk?
It is not possible to delete profiles in bulk from the Duplicates page. Profiles cannot be restored once deleted, so it's very important that you check whether a deletion is needed on a per-case basis.
Can we merge profiles in bulk?
No, it is not possible to merge profiles in bulk. Profiles cannot be un-merged so it's very important you check a merge is needed for each potential duplicate that is flagged.
Why can I not merge or delete a profile?
You won't be able to delete or merge a profile that has attendance marks. If you need to delete any student's attendance marks to enable a merge or deletion, you can do this following these instructions.
There are also three reasons why you might not be able to approve a merge:
- If you don't have the School: General Admin: Administer permission.
- If you aren't logged in to the school's site where the duplicates are.
- If you're the person who requested the merge - only the person that was chosen as the approver can click the button to approve the merge.
Can we keep records separate in bulk?
Yes you can - just tick the boxes next to the profiles you want to keep separate. Click the Bulk action button to select Bulk set as 'Keep separate'.
They'll then show in the Resolved tab.
Student is a duplicate but isn't flagging as one
If you're sure that two students are duplicates but aren't being identified as duplicates, make sure only one has a UPN assigned, and that their names are identical.
Go to the student profile that has the incorrect name, and change their name to exactly match the name on the other profile.
If they're not flagging on the Data Quality Dashboard, be sure to check the Resolved tab to see if someone mistakenly chose to keep the profiles separate.
Can I undo the resolution I chose?
- If you have merged or deleted profiles, this cannot be changed.
- If you have chosen to keep records separate, you can change the resolution.
Click into the Resolved tab and select the resolved duplicates. In the slide over, you can then select a new resolution.
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