When you disconnect one Practice Management (PM) integration and connect a different one, Vinyl treats each system as a separate source. Contacts with the same email are usually merged, but client and group records from your new PM system come into Vinyl as new records, even if they were previously imported from your old system.
Why duplicates cause real problems
Duplicates aren't just cosmetic clutter, they break the core value of connecting Vinyl to your PMS in the first place.
When a client exists twice in Vinyl, here's what goes wrong:
Meeting history gets split. Meetings recorded before the switch sit under the old client record. Meetings after the switch sit under the new one. There's no single place to see all meetings for that client, you lose the continuity that makes the integration valuable.
Notes sync to the wrong record. When Vinyl pushes meeting notes to your PMS, it matches on the record it knows. If you have two records, notes may file to the duplicate rather than the canonical client record your team actually uses.
Client view is fragmented. Anyone looking up a client in Vinyl may see a partial picture, missing the historical meetings that were tagged to the old record. For a firm that relies on Vinyl for client context before meetings, this is a significant gap.
What happens when you switch PM systems
Vinyl treats each integration separately. For example, if you previously synced from XPM and now connect Karbon:
Contacts with the same email are usually merged. A contact from your new system is matched to an existing contact with the same email address.
Client records and groups are matched on the record ID from your PM system only, so they're not linked across systems. If a client existed under your old PM system, it can appear as a second, separate client record once your new system syncs in. This is where duplicates appear.
How to prevent duplicates before switching
The cleanest approach is to remove your existing synced data before you connect the new system. When you disconnect a PM integration in Vinyl, you'll see a checkbox that reads Also remove all contacts, clients, and groups synced from your current system. It's ticked by default.
Leaving this ticked clears out the old integration's data so that when you connect your new system, it imports fresh. Only a Master Admin can disconnect an integration.
To do this when disconnecting:
1. Go to Integrations
2. Find your current PM integration and click Disconnect
3. Keep Also remove all contacts, clients, and groups synced from your current system ticked
4. Confirm the removal
5. Connect your new PM system
Note: This only removes data that was synced from the integration, it does not affect contacts or clients you created manually in Vinyl. Contacts with meeting history or a saved voiceprint are kept, and only their link to the old PM system is removed. The removal runs in the background, so it may take a little while to finish.
Already have duplicates?
If you've already switched and are seeing doubled-up records, the Duplicates tab under Clients can find them for you. Click Start Duplicate Scan. It checks contacts, clients and client groups, all in one review screen.
Here's what it looks for:
Clients and client groups with exactly the same name, or that share the same record ID from your PM system.
Contacts that share the same email address, even if they came in from different PM records.
Reviewing and merging
Before you merge, Vinyl shows you which record will be kept and how many meetings, contacts and group links will move across to it. Once you confirm, everything that pointed to the duplicate (meetings, action items, notes, contacts and group links) is moved to the record you're keeping, so your client's full history sits in one place.
Every merge is your call, nothing is merged automatically. If a merge can't complete, nothing is changed and you'll see a message letting you know, so it's safe to try again.
A few things to keep in mind
The Duplicates tab is available to every Master Admin, whichever PM systems your firm has used. If you don't see it, check with your team's Master Admin.
A scan can take a little while on larger client lists, this is expected.
Only exact name matches are grouped for clients and groups. Two records with similar but slightly different names (for example, "Smith Pty Ltd" and "Smith Pty. Ltd.") won't be picked up.
Archiving a duplicate client record yourself: For near-matches the scan doesn't group, a Master Admin can archive the extra record directly:
Go to the Clients list
Open the ⋯ menu on the duplicate client
Choose Archive client
Archived clients can be restored, so this is safe to do once you've confirmed which record is the one your team should keep using. If you're not sure which of two client records is the right one to archive, reach out to support and we'll take a look together.
Our team can also guide you through a clean-up and help make sure your meeting history is correctly attributed going forward.
Switching tools should feel simple, not messy, and we're always happy to help if something looks off.