1

Does the Google Data API have the ability to merge two contacts based on their entry ids?

My place of employment allows multiple email addresses for the same person.

I'm writing an application to remove alias email addresses and merge duplicate contacts to prevent losing Calendar appointments. The application detects duplicate Contacts based on the person's internal LDAP uid, but the Google Data API doesn't appear to have the ability to merge Contacts based on two entry IDs unless I'm overlooking the contacts API documentation

This describes how to manually merge the contacts or use the Contact Manager to automate the merge process, but the automated merge process is based on the contact's name and not the contact's internal uid.

schnatterer
  • 7,525
  • 7
  • 61
  • 80
Jacob S
  • 11
  • 1

1 Answers1

1

The Contacts API doesn't provide a built-in function to merge contacts, but your application could accomplish the same by copying over relevant fields and then deleting the extra contacts.

Eric Koleda
  • 12,420
  • 1
  • 33
  • 51
  • Wouldn't deleting the duplicate contact cause appointments scheduled with that contact to be deleted? I'm tempted to make duplicate contacts have the same name then provide users with instructions on using the automated merge process through the Contact Manager. – Jacob S Oct 20 '14 at 13:06
  • No, I don't believe so. Calendar invites are primarily keyed off of email address, and you don't need to have someone in your contacts in order to invite them to a calendar event. You should be able to confirm this fairly easily. – Eric Koleda Oct 20 '14 at 15:10