@SHust or @SBurnett-WMF Could you clarify what the issue we are trying to improve here is? Naively, it shouldn't really matter which way we merge a pair of contacts as the final contact should have all the information. Is there some information that isn't being transferred correctly when we merge?

They are unable to see if there is an active recurring donation on the
records - it doesn't matter if it is monthly or annual - they need to see
if there is an active recurring, and they can't see it when they are merged.

@SBurnett-WMF @SHust I think it would help to understand why DR needs to see if there is an active recurring when merging. In theory, it shouldn't matter which way you merge for recurring contributions. Some context on what we're trying to achieve (beyond just the merge screen) would help clarify the request.

@Lars, while the system technically maintains the recurring donation, it doesn’t always preserve the donor’s additional info—like name and email—as the primary record. For example, if a donor has an active recurring via PayPal but makes a one-time donation via credit card with a different email—which happens frequently—Civi won’t automatically retain all info unless the correct box is checked during a merge. The “Recurring Active” indicator would help DR identify this and ensure the merge keeps the correct primary information. Let me know if you need more information.

Thanks @SHust, so is this specifically about making sure we are keeping the Paypal email as primary for Paypal recurring donors or would this be for all recurring donors? I would assume if we get a newer email address from a contact who has a non-Paypal recurring, we'd want to keep the newer email in that case.

@SHust also do we need to think about this in Deduper as well? I'm guessing the same issue could happen there as well.

@Lars, I think it would be helpful for us to go over this on a call next week. PayPal was only one example to explain why I’m asking for this, but there are other scenarios too, so PP is not the main focus. I’m not explaining it well in the phab, so apologies for that!

Thanks @SHust, maybe Civi fortnightly this Wednesday?

Deal, ty!

The additional request here is also to add something similar in Deduper (we'll just add these to the extension in general, down by the last contribution date).