# Additional information to help with disambiguation in the workbench

**URL:** <https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897>\
**Category:** New Feature Requests\
**Created:** [August 7, 2024, 3:30pm UTC](https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897 "2024-08-07T15:30:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rdrinkwater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@rdrinkwater](https://speciforum.org/u/rdrinkwater)\
**Post date:** [August 7, 2024, 3:30pm UTC](https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897/1 "2024-08-07T15:30:20Z")

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It would be incredibly helpful if the disambiguation dialog box in the work bench could be configured to include some additional information. We often have a situation where we are trying to disambiguate a taxon where there are multiple records for the rank in question in the same family. It is very difficult to know which is the correct record, and we want to keep the ‘duplicate’ records, as they are often homonyms which we need to maintain.

The inclusion of a record id, or author would be very helpful with this process.

e.g. Abies in Pinaceae

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/specifysoftware/original/2X/3/3d573b5104605b00bd812720005eff16347b52b7.png)

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/specifysoftware/original/2X/3/3ada8db7d34f3f1dcf005fc6b765ca1bc01a67a6.png)

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**Author:** ![bronwyn](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/speciforum.org/bronwyn/32/5742_2.png) [@bronwyn](https://speciforum.org/u/bronwyn)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2024, 2:56pm UTC](https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897/2 "2024-08-09T14:56:05Z")

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Hi Robyn,

Thanks for reaching out! This feature request is up on GitHub now, [issue #5212](https://github.com/specify/specify7/issues/5212). Please review this and I will have it marked as “verified” with your approval.

Best,  
Bronwyn

> <https://github.com/specify/specify7/issues/5212>
>
> \*\*From Robyn @ RBGE on \[discourse\](https://speciforum.org/t/addit…ional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897):\*\* 
> 
> \> It would be incredibly helpful if the disambiguation dialog box in the work bench could be configured to include some additional information. We often have a situation where we are trying to disambiguate a taxon where there are multiple records for the rank in question in the same family. It is very difficult to know which is the correct record, and we want to keep the ‘duplicate’ records, as they are often homonyms which we need to maintain.
> \> 
> \> The inclusion of a record id, or author would be very helpful with this process.
> \> 
> \> e.g. Abies in Pinaceae
> \> 
> \> !\[image\](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/240d5e8d-0e7c-4197-8905-1fa6f5157e45)
> \> !\[image\](https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5c94f3a2-4fea-4b51-9612-7543dc589b21)
> 
> 
> \*\*Reported By\*\*
> RBGE

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**Author:** ![rdrinkwater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@rdrinkwater](https://speciforum.org/u/rdrinkwater)\
**Post date:** [August 21, 2024, 8:23am UTC](https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897/3 "2024-08-21T08:23:20Z")

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Hi Bronwyn,  
Thanks for creating this issue. The write up looks good to me.

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**Author:** ![jagullov](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/speciforum.org/jagullov/32/2166_2.png) [@jagullov](https://speciforum.org/u/jagullov)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2024, 10:58am UTC](https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897/4 "2024-12-19T10:58:37Z")

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I don’t know if it’s possible to configure the workbench to do this, but during the taxonomy import, we’re running into issues with ambiguous terms at the species, subspecies, and genus levels. We need to be able to view the author of the taxon description [Taxon table | author field] in order to disambiguate the term.

Could the workbench be configured to display the author of the taxon when right-clicking on identical terms?

@mprimanz

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**Author:** ![Grant](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/speciforum.org/grant/32/4255_2.png) [@Grant](https://speciforum.org/u/Grant)\
**Post date:** [December 19, 2024, 3:39pm UTC](https://speciforum.org/t/additional-information-to-help-with-disambiguation-in-the-workbench/1897/5 "2024-12-19T15:39:58Z")

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Hi @jagullov,

Thank you for reaching out!  
I have [added your request to the issue tracking this](https://github.com/specify/specify7/issues/5212#issuecomment-2554666117).

Currently, you cannot customize what information is shown when disambiguating taxonomy in the WorkBench, so authorship information cannot be shown. I agree that improving this would be an important enhancement, so I added additional information to make this easier for the devs to resolve.