Why aren't the merged reports included in a mailing email message filtering on the primary key?

Environment:

Outreach Mailings and Feedback, Surveys, Campaigns

Issue:

We included a merge report in the outbound email message for a mailing but the report isn't filtering the correct output for the contact.

Resolution:

To ensure the correct filter is adhered to in the merge report would require including the primary key as a column in the report.  The column can be hidden so it does not display.  The Automatically Apply Primary Filter will be checked by default when you insert the report in the message.

Cause:

The reason is due to the rows that are returned in the report may not be unique. The analytics engine will automatically add the unique index when the rows are unique, whether they are hidden or not.  If the report can return multiple records based on the filter, it is necessary to add the key value as a column in the report.  An example would be returning incident data for a customer where the customer could have multiple incidents.  In this case, you would need to include the unique key for incidents, i.e. incidents.i_id.

You can review answer Dynamic Merge Reports for additional information on other primary key filters.