Merging duplicate materials helps keep your catalog clean and avoids confusion for your team. While Ply doesn’t currently have a native merge button, you can still combine materials by transferring information manually and deleting or deactivating duplicates.
This guide explains:
- How to perform a merge in Ply.
- What happens with your FSM integration (ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, or Jobber).
- Best practices to ensure duplicates don’t reappear.
🔄 What “Merging” Means in Ply
Right now, Ply doesn’t have a built-in feature to select two materials and merge them automatically. Instead, a merge in Ply means:
- Copying over the information from one material (Item #, quantities, photos, name, description, supplier, etc.) into the material you want to keep.
- Deleting or deactivating the duplicate that’s no longer needed.
It’s essentially a manual merge — but it works to clean up your catalog.
📋 Steps to Merge Materials in Ply
- Go to Catalog → Materials Management.
- Identify duplicates. Here is an example:
This is the same material, but Ply recognized it as two different ones because they don’t share the same name or item number.
- Decide which material you want to keep as the “main” one.
- Typically, keep the record with:
- The correct item number.
- A clean, accurate name.
- Existing stock or location data.
- Image included.
In the example above, the main material would be the second one, since it has the more complete name, an image, and an item number.
- Open the duplicate material and copy any important information into the one you’re keeping (item number, photo, description, etc.).
- Move stock quantities, costs, and any other relevant information from the duplicate item into the primary item.
- Double-check that the data is accurate before proceeding.
In the example above, since one of the materials is incomplete, the only step left is to transfer the quantities to the main material.
- Once all details are transferred:
- If the material is not integrated with your FSM, you can delete it.
- If the material is integrated, see the FSM-specific notes below before deleting.
⚠️ What Happens in Your FSM System
ServiceTitan (ST)
- Deleting a material in Ply does not remove it from ServiceTitan.
- Best practice:
- Deactivate the duplicate in Ply (this triggers deactivation in ST), then
- Delete the duplicate from Ply.
- Alternatively, you can manually deactivate the material directly in ServiceTitan.
If you only delete in Ply without deactivating, the item may reappear on the next sync.
Housecall Pro (HCP)
- HCP has a configurable option that controls whether materials deleted in Ply are also deleted in HCP.
- Check your settings:
Settings → Integrations.
- If enabled, deleting in Ply will also remove the material in HCP.
Jobber
- Jobber’s API does not allow deleting materials from its catalog.
- If one material is integrated and the other is not: delete the non-integrated one in Ply and keep the integrated one.
- If both are integrated: keep the correct material; rename and deactivate the duplicate in Ply (e.g., add “— inactive” in the name/description). It will still appear in Jobber, but clearly marked as inactive.
Jobber doesn’t have a price book concept like ST/HCP, so material functionality is more limited.
✅ Best Practices
- ServiceTitan: Deactivate in Ply first, then delete.
- Housecall Pro: Confirm whether deletions sync (via integration settings).
- Jobber: You can’t delete via API; rename + deactivate the duplicate.
- Keep an internal log of merged items for team visibility.
- Prevent duplicates at creation time with consistent item numbers and naming.
📌 Summary
Merging in Ply is a manual process of consolidating details and then deleting or deactivating duplicates.
- ST → Deactivate before delete.
- HCP → Deletions can sync if enabled.
- Jobber → No deletion via API; rename + deactivate.
🧰 Need help with bulk merges?
If you have a large number of duplicates, send us a file that clearly indicates which materials to keep and which to remove. Our Data Team can handle the merges for you.
Email the file to support@getply.com and we’ll take it from there.