E-Mail Issue - Widow received an e-mail with her husband's name in the salutation!

Lauren Fardella

Okay, big issue over here. I have only used OLX for E-mails twice and this most recent time, we included the first name in the salutation (Dear FIRST NAME). I did not include deceased, inactive, and no valid address. Unfortunately, an e-mail went to a woman whose husband has been deceased for a year and had donations come to us when he passed. She was NOT happy to receive an e-mail that was to HER e-mail address but addressed to her husband. The addresse/salutations are only to her. How could this happen? Her e-mail is on his DECEASED record, but like I said I did not include deceased.   


My boss is freaking out beacuse she knows this woman and said we can not use OLX again for e-mails until I figure this out.

Michele Stender

Lauren Fardella:
Okay, big issue over here. I have only used OLX for E-mails twice and this most recent time, we included the first name in the salutation (Dear FIRST NAME). I did not include deceased, inactive, and no valid address. Unfortunately, an e-mail went to a woman whose husband has been deceased for a year and had donations come to us when he passed. She was NOT happy to receive an e-mail that was to HER e-mail address but addressed to her husband. The addresse/salutations are only to her. How could this happen? Her e-mail is on his DECEASED record, but like I said I did not include deceased.   


My boss is freaking out beacuse she knows this woman and said we can not use OLX again for e-mails until I figure this out.

Hi Lauren, Oh no! Definently not a good experience for your donor. I am going to get a support case started for you to see if we can figure this out a bit further and ensure that this doesn't happen again.

~Michele Stender

Jen Claudy

Is he still in the HOH spot?  When you open the Constituent Record, is his name in the First Name field and her name under the Spouse Record?  That would likely be why...because OLX doesn't know/can't pull the First Name from more than one place.  You can pick a Salutation to use instead.  That's what we've done.  I have two Additional Addr/Sals for OLX...OLX Addressee and OLX Salutation.  Then use those in the OLX Messages rather than First Name.  With this, you do still need to be careful to review what names appear in those Addr/Sals, because sometimes it would be the HOH, sometimes the Spouse (as in, I believe, your case), and sometimes both in cases of a family/household email.

Lauren Fardella

Jen Claudy:

Is he still in the HOH spot?  When you open the Constituent Record, is his name in the First Name field and her name under the Spouse Record?  That would likely be why...because OLX doesn't know/can't pull the First Name from more than one place.  You can pick a Salutation to use instead.  That's what we've done.  I have two Additional Addr/Sals for OLX...OLX Addressee and OLX Salutation.  Then use those in the OLX Messages rather than First Name.  With this, you do still need to be careful to review what names appear in those Addr/Sals, because sometimes it would be the HOH, sometimes the Spouse (as in, I believe, your case), and sometimes both in cases of a family/household email.

Yes he is still HOH....augh, even though he is deceased it still pulled his name?    IS there a way to global add a OLX Addressee/OLX Saluation to all records?  

Jen Claudy

If the Query you used in your OLX List is set to Exclude Deceased, then it should have excluded that record entirely.  But I believe, if that's the problem, that it is an issue with RE/Query rather than with OLX.


You can use Global Change to add an Additional Addr/Sal...I think.  Or Import (but for this you first need to grab the Addr/Sal ID from the Config > Addr/Sal table...export that table to Excel, and it will provide the ID for each format.  I used Import when I cleaned out and repopulated all of our Addr/Sals several years ago.  I don't remember how Global Change works in this regard.  I would suggest picking a couple of records and testing. 

Lauren Fardella

Jen Claudy:

If the Query you used in your OLX List is set to Exclude Deceased, then it should have excluded that record entirely.  But I believe, if that's the problem, that it is an issue with RE/Query rather than with OLX.


You can use Global Change to add an Additional Addr/Sal...I think.  Or Import (but for this you first need to grab the Addr/Sal ID from the Config > Addr/Sal table...export that table to Excel, and it will provide the ID for each format.  I used Import when I cleaned out and repopulated all of our Addr/Sals several years ago.  I don't remember how Global Change works in this regard.  I would suggest picking a couple of records and testing. 

Thank you for your help Jen!    I was on the phone with support and we solved the issue!     It had to do with the e-mails on the deceased record needing to be inactive.