Merge duplicate user accounts

• Inside one school: in the left sidebar, open Users & Groups → Users and select Merge users. (Users is a drop-down group that also holds Rename user, Move users, Holiday pauses and Creation history.)
• Across schools (MAT mode): under Users & Groups, select Merge users. It sits alongside Find a user and Merge history. From Find a user you can also select Review / merge on a person who is in more than one school to arrive with their accounts already chosen.

The page is titled Merge users. A row of step labels runs across the top (1. Select, 2. Compare, 3. Email change, 4. Sync options, 5. Preview, 6. Cloud review, 7. Result). Cancel (top right) leaves the tool, and Back to selection appears on later steps so you can start again.

Type a name, username, email address or School ID into the box ("Search by name, username or school ID…") — at least two characters. In a single school the results are that school's users; in MAT mode results appear from all the schools you can reach. Deleted accounts don't appear, and the list shows up to 30 matches, so type more to narrow it.

For each result you can see: name, username, school and status (Active in green, anything else such as Suspended in grey). If nothing matches the page says No users found matching "…".

For each user in the results:

• Primary (radio button) — the account to keep. Choose the most complete or most recently active account.
• Secondary (checkbox) — the account(s) to remove. You can select more than one secondary.

A single user cannot be both primary and secondary.

Select Next: compare fields when you have made your selections. The button stays greyed out until you have one primary and at least one secondary.

The Compare step shows a side-by-side table of both accounts' field values:

For each field, select the radio button next to the value you want the merged user to have. The primary's values are selected by default.

Passwords are a choice too, but the values are never shown. Each account's Password cell says School default, Custom password, … · same as primary or Not set. The primary's password is selected by default; choose a secondary's when the duplicate is the account the person actually signs in with, or they'll be locked out until you reset it. What each label means, and when the new password reaches Google, Entra and Active Directory, is in Which password a merged user keeps.

Choose the Wonde ID carefully. The Wonde ID is how the nightly MIS import finds this person. Whichever record still exists in your MIS is the Wonde ID to keep — if the merged user keeps the wrong one (or none at all), the import stops updating them, or creates them again as a brand-new account. Duplicate accounts are very often exactly this: the same person under two Wonde IDs, only one of which the MIS still sends.

If the records hold different Wonde IDs, or the choice would leave the merged user without one, a warning appears on the next step and again on the preview, and you must acknowledge it before merging. Once the merge runs, only the kept account holds that Wonde ID — it is removed from the record being deleted, so the import can never match the deleted twin and bring it back.

Select Next: review sync impact when done.

This step only appears when your field choices will change the primary user's sign-in address (for example you chose the username from the secondary account, or the kept school has a different Google domain). Otherwise you go straight to the next step.

You'll see a warning:

"This merge will change the primary user's email address."

It shows the current address and the new one. For each connected platform choose:

• Google Workspace — Rename the old account now (tick Keep old address as a Google alias to keep mail deliverable) or Leave it — let the next sync handle it.
• Microsoft Entra — Rename the UPN now or Leave it — let the next sync handle it.

Renaming now updates the cloud account immediately. Leaving it means the change is applied at the next scheduled sync.

Select Next: secondary sync options when ready.

The Sync options step lets you decide what to do with each secondary user's cloud accounts. It only appears when a secondary's school has Google or Microsoft Entra sync switched on; if neither is on you go straight to the preview. Each secondary has its own card with a section per platform:

"Do nothing" is not permanent. Whichever option you pick, once the merge completes the secondary is marked removed, and the next regular sync for that school will suspend its cloud account anyway if nothing has already suspended it. Choosing Suspend or Rename & suspend here just does it immediately instead of waiting for the next sync.

A merged-away account is never marked "protected". If either the primary or a secondary account was protected before the merge, the kept (primary) account stays protected — protection is never lost — but it is never applied to the accounts being removed. There's no option to protect a secondary; see If this person is still at the other school for why that wouldn't help anyway.

If any data issues are detected, a panel headed Data issues detected — review before proceeding appears. Tick I have reviewed these issues and understand the risks of proceeding to carry on; Continue to preview stays greyed out until you do. The messages are listed under Troubleshooting. If the primary and a secondary are at different schools that don't share a Google sign-in domain, the panel also warns that the removed school's groups, Classroom and calendar access will be lost — see Merging someone who works at more than one school if that's not what you want.

A note at the bottom says "Cloud actions run first. If any fail you can retry or proceed anyway before the database changes."

Select Continue to preview.

Before anything irreversible happens, the Preview step, headed What this merge will do, shows everything the merge will do:

• Identity / email — whether the kept account's sign-in address changes and exactly what it becomes. If it changes, a brand-new cloud account is created at the new address on the next sync — existing Drive files, Classroom content and email stay on the old account (handled per your email-change choice). If the schools share a sign-in domain, the preview says so and no account rename happens.
• Password — whether the kept account keeps its own password or takes the one you chose from a removed account, and who that password came from.
• MIS link (Wonde ID) — which Wonde ID the merged user keeps, which record it came from, and any Wonde IDs being dropped. If the merged user would keep none, the preview says so in plain terms.
• Groups & Classroom memberships — how many memberships move to the kept account (duplicates are skipped automatically).
• Classroom ownership — any classes the removed account owns transfer to the kept account, so no classroom is left without a working owner.
• Guardians — parent contacts move to the kept account (duplicates skipped).
• History — the removed account's activity log is re-attributed to the kept account, so the full history survives.
• Protection and role — if either account was protected, the merged account stays protected; if the accounts had different roles, the preview flags what the merged role will be and what that affects.
• Discarded — a plain statement that the secondary records are marked deleted (kept for audit, with their username and School ID suffixed) and their cloud accounts are handled per your sync choices.

Select Confirm & merge and confirm the dialog ("Merge these users now? This cannot be fully undone once cloud accounts change."). Back returns to the compare step. If the data-issues warnings appeared earlier, they appear again here and must be acknowledged first.

Realsmart runs the cloud actions first, before touching the database ("Running cloud actions, please wait…"). If they all succeed it carries straight on and you never see a separate review screen.

If any action failed, the Cloud action results screen appears with a banner ("N cloud action(s) failed. The database has not been modified yet.") and a table with the columns User, Role, Provider, Action, Status (succeeded or failed) and Detail (the error). You can:

• Retry failed actions (N) — try the failed ones again. If they now all succeed, the merge carries on.
• Proceed anyway… — select it, then Confirm — apply DB changes now, to skip the failed cloud steps and apply the database changes. You can Cancel instead.

The database is not modified until the cloud step completes or you choose to proceed anyway.

The Result step says Merge completed successfully. with a View in merge audit log link, or Merge completed with errors: followed by the problems. If it succeeded, the secondary users are marked deleted and the primary account holds the merged data.

Select Back to search (MAT mode) or Back to users (inside a school) to carry on, or Merge audit log to review what was changed.