Keeping old address/work info when change occurs

Carol Tytler

Hi All,


Is there an easy way to keep the old address info as part of the person's record when they make a change (such as moving or changing jobs)  I can easily update the info in the persona and can copy and paste the old info into a journal entry but was hoping there was something "automatic" that would create that paper trail for me. 


Carol T

Faith Murray

Carol, the way we do it is we enter a new Address record for the new address, without overwriting the old. To do this, instead of changing the address on Bio 1 tab, you must instead go to the Addresses tab and click "New Address". Enter the new address information and make sure to select "Send Mail" and "Make this the Primary Address" button. Then on the old address, un-select the "Send Mail" button and add an end date.


Also be sure on the Addresses tab that you have un-selected the "Hide Addresses that do not Receive Mail" button at the bottom. Otherwise, even though the old addresses will be present, you won't be able to see them. You only have to un-select this on one record, and it will remember your preferences when opening any record.


It's a little more work, but like you, we got tired of finding "new" addresses for donors (through NCOA, White Pages, etc.) only to discover the "new" address was older than our current address. Of course, these are steps for manual entry. If you change addresses in bulk through Import instead, there will be different steps for the same result. Hope this helps.

Carol Tytler

Perfect!  Thanks so much for the fast response!!!


Carol

Faith Murray

I just realized that your post was for eTapestry, not Raiser's Edge. Sorry!

I'm not sure if it helps, but (to partly redeem myself), here is a link to an eTapestry guide, "Data Management", which suggests: "By default, eTapestry includes the persona types Personal and Business, but you can add more persona types as needed in order to record more types of address data, such as Joint or Seasonal." Maybe you could create a new "Former Address" persona type, and export/transfer the address info into that before updating the new info...?

https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/guides/etap/databasemanagement.pdf

 

Carol Tytler

...I realized that too as I went looking for the address tab.  Chat room staff told me exactly what you said below....create an additional persona, which is what I did.  I created a persona for Previous Address and for Previous Business Address. For other eTap users who may want to do the same....


Go to:

1) Management

2) System Defined Fields

3) Persona Types

4) Add the new category you need. 


Then:

1) Open the person's account and go to the Persona page

2) At the bottom of the screen, use the "COPY" button to copy to the Previous Address persona that you created.

3) Then you can update the address info in the Personal persona and save....make sure you check the box to have the updated Personal persona be the Primary Contact info. 


You can confirm that it worked by going to the HOME section of the person's account and scrolling down through the list of Personas....you'll see the updated version as well as the older version that you have now saved as Previous Address. 


C



 

Cindy Durham

I put the old address in the Note section of the Persona to which it belongs with something like "Prior to 5/2016:" before the old address.  I too found that NCOA often has an older address than what I have so putting that little precursor helps when I do another NCOA update.  It's kind of a pain to have to go into the journal to get the old address when you do NCOA updates but it's worth it in the end.  It also gives you a running history of where they've been (in our case, we have a lot of attorneys who often change firms).


Hope this helps.


Cindy

Elizabeth Rossi

You also should use the "copy preferred address to alternate" which is under Constituent tab, it will put the current address in and mark it previous address and then also a preferred address which is the same, just click on the preferred and add the new address, it will keep the old and the new is already marked as preferred, just add the date. Also change the new in the Addressee tab not the main Bio 1 tab. Under Business tab you uncheck the box that says "Primary Business Information" and that information goes to the Relationship tab so you dont lose any information. Hope that all made sense.


Elizabeth

Lisa Dixon

Carol Tytler:

...I realized that too as I went looking for the address tab.  Chat room staff told me exactly what you said below....create an additional persona, which is what I did.  I created a persona for Previous Address and for Previous Business Address. For other eTap users who may want to do the same....


Go to:

1) Management

2) System Defined Fields

3) Persona Types

4) Add the new category you need. 


Then:

1) Open the person's account and go to the Persona page

2) At the bottom of the screen, use the "COPY" button to copy to the Previous Address persona that you created.

3) Then you can update the address info in the Personal persona and save....make sure you check the box to have the updated Personal persona be the Primary Contact info. 


You can confirm that it worked by going to the HOME section of the person's account and scrolling down through the list of Personas....you'll see the updated version as well as the older version that you have now saved as Previous Address. 


C



 

Carol-

Joining this thread late- but I had a followup question- after you save the previous address do you then take it a step farther and go into user defined fields and mark it as DO NOT MAIL- or is that an unecessarystep???  Thanks for the help if you have any insight.

Lisa

Philippa Comfort

Hi Lisa,

I think if you get a new good address, obviously don't code the person Do Not Mail as Contact Preferences not address specific. If you don't get a new good address then you could code as Do Not Mail or Bad Address. We get enough address "corrections" that are in fact incorrect themselves (PO or NCOA says address is invalid when we know it's not) that when we know the address is correct we leave it and make a note to that effect in the Notes field. * If anyone has a better suggestion for managing that situation, please repsond!

Pippa