Prevent Overwriting When Linking Constituents

Shauna Kipper

It is our policy to put all gifts into the record of the Head of Household (record a). When the spouse (record b) makes a donation online and I link it to the HoH it overwrites record b with the record a's information.

Is there any way to avoid this?

Jen Claudy

I don't have any donations to download, and it's been a while since I did download one, so I can't completely trust my memory...but you should be able to uncheck a box to prevent OLX from updating constituent data.  Before you do so, be sure to note any relevant information and make any updates to RE outside of the OLX download process (i.e. a new phone number).  I believe when you are linking the constituent record to the OLX transaction, you want to uncheck a checkbox on the 2nd tab of that search screen.



Your other option would be, if there are no gifts kept on any of the spouse records, downloading the transaction to the spouse's record and then using the Merge Constituent function to move the gift from one record to the other.  This will not overwrite any data, so long as you only select Gifts on the Merge screen (and do not check the box to delete the source record!).



 

Candace Chesler

Shauna - 

We have the same Business Rule.  When creating the batch for the Online Express donations, we link it to the name of the online donor.  Once the batch is created - we then change the Constituent within the batch to be the Head of Household.  This allows us to get any email or phone number updates that the Non Head of Household donor entered in the online form - and also allows us to maintain the integrity of all donations being on the HOH record.