Master (Survivorship) Rules
Master rules (survivorship rules) decide which record in a duplicate group becomes the master — the surviving record — during automated and mass merges. Click Add master rule and assign a field, a score, a matching type, and a matching value. Records earn points for each rule they satisfy; the highest-scoring record wins.
Master rules pick the survivor automatically during mass merges and multi-select merges. In manual Review, you can always override with Set as master.
Cross-object scenarios don't have a Master step — duplicate leads are converted into the matched Account/Contact rather than merged.
Record-level rules
When you choose Record as the field, you can rank records by:
- Oldest Record / Newest Record
- Owner By / Not Owned By — prefer or avoid records owned by a specific user
- Most Opportunities, Most Contacts, Most Cases — prefer the record with the most related records
Field-level rules
For regular fields, the available operators depend on the field type — text, number, checkbox, or ID fields each offer their own comparison options.
If you enter an invalid Salesforce ID in an ID-based rule, you'll see: "Looks like the ID you entered is invalid. Please check it." Copy IDs straight from the record URL to avoid typos.