Head of Household

Desiree White

I was hoping that I could get some advice on what other people are doing to determine who is the head of the household.  In the past we made the check signer the HOH but we have found that not to be the best for us.  Since we are an Organization that raises money to find a cure for the disease we thought that the person with the disease might be the best person to be marked as HOH.  If there are any thoughts that you can share it would be appreciated. 

Libby Konersmann

Desiree Shaw:

I was hoping that I could get some advice on what other people are doing to determine who is the head of the household.  In the past we made the check signer the HOH but we have found that not to be the best for us.  Since we are an Organization that raises money to find a cure for the disease we thought that the person with the disease might be the best person to be marked as HOH.  If there are any thoughts that you can share it would be appreciated. 

Hi Desiree,

I can't really speak to 'best practices' of marking records as Head of Household, but this Knowledgebase solution should be helpful in identifying those that are already marked as Head of Household so you can begin your cleanup process.

Hope this helps!

Libby

Melissa Graves 2

Desiree Shaw:

I was hoping that I could get some advice on what other people are doing to determine who is the head of the household.  In the past we made the check signer the HOH but we have found that not to be the best for us.  Since we are an Organization that raises money to find a cure for the disease we thought that the person with the disease might be the best person to be marked as HOH.  If there are any thoughts that you can share it would be appreciated. 

So this is assuming you are creating full constituent records for spouses - because otherwise HOH is not an issue. I would first recommend, if you have not already, evaluating your policy on creating full records for spouses. I am not a fan of full constituent spouses and recommend avoiding them as much as you can.

I recommend, when you have to have a full constituent spouse, that the HOH be the record that has the closest relationship to your organization. For a school, this would be the alum, for my org it is a board member or generational founder's family member, for your organization it may be the person with the disease.

If this is a highly fatal disease, you may then need to evaluate your policies for what to do if a couple shares a record and the primary person dies, do you mark them deceased and give the spouse a full record, or do you flip flop the constituent and the spouse information? No one right answer, but something to consider and document.

To give any more advice, can you explain why the checksigner was found "not to be the best for [you]". What issues did you find that you are trying to solve by changing your HOH policies?

Nicole S

Melissa Graves:

So this is assuming you are creating full constituent records for spouses - because otherwise HOH is not an issue. I would first recommend, if you have not already, evaluating your policy on creating full records for spouses. I am not a fan of full constituent spouses and recommend avoiding them as much as you can.

I recommend, when you have to have a full constituent spouse, that the HOH be the record that has the closest relationship to your organization. For a school, this would be the alum, for my org it is a board member or generational founder's family member, for your organization it may be the person with the disease.

If this is a highly fatal disease, you may then need to evaluate your policies for what to do if a couple shares a record and the primary person dies, do you mark them deceased and give the spouse a full record, or do you flip flop the constituent and the spouse information? No one right answer, but something to consider and document.

To give any more advice, can you explain why the checksigner was found "not to be the best for [you]". What issues did you find that you are trying to solve by changing your HOH policies?

 I think the process by which we look up head of household records in query is completely backwards.  I have a business rules set up so that if a gift is being entered on the non-HOH there is a pop-up to confirm that there is a reason for this.  My query for doing this confuses even me. [*-)] Anyway, it would just be simpler to have "Is HOH" an on option on the record instead of getting to it through the relationship. 

Melissa Graves 2

Nicole S.:

 I think the process by which we look up head of household records in query is completely backwards.  I have a business rules set up so that if a gift is being entered on the non-HOH there is a pop-up to confirm that there is a reason for this.  My query for doing this confuses even me. [*-)] Anyway, it would just be simpler to have "Is HOH" an on option on the record instead of getting to it through the relationship. 

The way query works - I agree - is strange. Have you voted to change it in Discovery?

I have the same query only mine is not to confirm there is a reason for this - mine is to warn users NOT to put information on this record which should go on the HOH record.

Nicole S

Melissa Graves:

The way query works - I agree - is strange. Have you voted to change it in Discovery?

I have the same query only mine is not to confirm there is a reason for this - mine is to warn users NOT to put information on this record which should go on the HOH record.

 I have.