A Contact Shows as Already Existing but Isn't in Your Creators List
You try to add someone, GRIN tells you they already exist, and yet you cannot find that person anywhere in your Creators list. The record is usually archived. An archived creator is hidden from your list while still counting as an existing contact, so the same person looks present and absent at the same time.
Why it happens
The duplicate check matches on email address and on social handle, and it looks at every contact on your account, archived ones included. That is why adding the person again returns a message such as A contact with that email address already exists or A contact with that username already exists. Your Creators list, meanwhile, hides archived records by default, so searching there turns up nothing. Neither the message nor the empty list is wrong: they are describing two different views of the same record.
How to find the archived record
- Open Contacts > Creators.
- Set the Archived filter to Yes.
- Search for the person's name or email address.
- Select their name to open the profile.
How to restore them
- On the profile, find the Contact Type card.
- Select Restore Creator.
They return to your Creators list and are available for Activations again. If the profile does not show a Contact Type card, contact GRIN Support and we will restore the record for you.
Good to know
- Archived creators do not count toward your account's active creator limit, so restoring one takes a slot. If you are already at your limit, restore is blocked until a slot frees up or your limit is raised.
- Archiving stops conversion and content tracking for that creator. Previous conversions and content stay available for reporting, which is why archiving is recommended over deleting, as noted in managing creators.
- Adding the person by hand is covered in manually adding contacts, and if you are bringing people in as a batch and want existing records updated rather than skipped, use the update option described in importing contacts.