Manage duplicate applications

What is the manage duplicates feature?

The manage duplicate applications feature automatically identifies duplicate applications based on a configurable similarity threshold. Grant managers can also manually setting applications as duplicates. Through a process of selecting a primary application and confirming duplicates, duplicates are archived, but can be made visible as part of the review process.

The process will not change the original application (e.g duplicate applications are not being merged nor data moved between applications)—so that any actions with managing duplicates are non-destructive, reversible, and changeable.

What is automatically identified as a duplicate application?

Applications with the same or very similar application name in the same category.

How do I scan for and confirm duplicates?

If you are on a Premium plan, you'll find the Manage duplicates button at the bottom left of the Applications list view in the Manage workspace:

The first step on the 'Manage duplicates' page is the Scan for duplicates button. While scanning is quite quick, scanning is a computationally-intensive process, so is only done on demand.

The scan process compares every application with all other applications created before it for similarity, then displays a list of all identified duplicate applications.

The application created and submitted first is treated as the "primary" application. The primary can be changed. The primary application in an identified duplicate set is the one that will be the basis of reviewing.

The objective of a grant manager is then to work through sets of duplicates to:

• Compare applications if necessary (via the ellipsis)
  
• Select a different primary if preferred (with the radio button)
• Set applications as Not a duplicate if that is the case (via the action overflow)
• Confirm + archive duplicates when satisfied
• ... and eventually empty the Manage duplicates page

Setting similarity threshold

In the Manage workspace at Settings > Applications > General, is a setting for the Minimum application similarity percentage, which can be set between 50% and 100%.

The default is set to 85%, and optimum is between 80% to 85%. Changing the setting after a scan has been done will necessitate scanning again. Any applications already confirmed as duplicates will remain so.

Duplicates summary

On the manager's view of each application is a summary of duplicates, where a grant manager can:

• Have an overview of a duplicate set
• Observe or change the primary
• See those that are confirmed as duplicates and archived
• Compare duplicate applications

Manually setting duplicates

It may be that the automatic scanning process does not identify a duplicate (e.g. because a applicants nickname is used, which substantially differs in spelling from their name used in other applications), in which case a grant manager can manually set applications as duplicates:

• Via the Applications list view in the Manage workspace
• In bulk using the Action drop-down
• Or acting on a single application via the overflow menu

Reviewing duplicates

The quantity of duplicate applications, and the content of duplicates may have a bearing on reviewing, so there are a couple of options to be able to display this information to reviewers. These options can be set on each score set, so can be treated differently for different stages of reviewing. To configure this:

1. From the Manage workspace, navigate to Reviewing > Score sets
2. Open your score set or configure a new one
3. Open the 'Display' tab
4.  Scroll to the 'Display' box and select your desired option(s)
   
5. Save

Based on these settings, a duplicates box is displayed on the associated reviewer view with the applicant name linking to a preview of that application, opening in another tab. All reviewing, scoring and commenting is against the primary application only.