Use of Action vs. Event

Jenny Marquardt

My colleague wants to record a board meeting as an Event.  I would prefer it was recorded as an Action.


I see an Action as stepsand recordings towards solicitation, cultivation, stewardship, information gathering, meetings, etc

The board meeting is discussing how to handle a particular membership and planning fior their events in the coming year.


I see an Event as a function 'we' hold for the 'outside' which helps friend raise or fund raise.


I am open to all opinions and not set in my way but I need to be consistent in how it is done. 

Please let me know a definition of an Action and an Event if you would please.  What is the best practice of where to record the information?


Anything you can offer would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!!!

Crystal Bruce

Jenny Physioc:

My colleague wants to record a board meeting as an Event.  I would prefer it was recorded as an Action.


I see an Action as stepsand recordings towards solicitation, cultivation, stewardship, information gathering, meetings, etc

The board meeting is discussing how to handle a particular membership and planning fior their events in the coming year.


I see an Event as a function 'we' hold for the 'outside' which helps friend raise or fund raise.


I am open to all opinions and not set in my way but I need to be consistent in how it is done. 

Please let me know a definition of an Action and an Event if you would please.  What is the best practice of where to record the information?


Anything you can offer would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!!!

Hey Jenny, I moved this to the RE forums so you can get a good answer. Thanks!

Jen Claudy

If you want to add notes and comments about the meeting itself, I would say an Event might be the way to go because you then have an Event Record where you can store all of that information.  If you use Actions, you will either have to duplicate all of those notes for each one (which you can do when you Globally Add the Action) or you will have to add the Action with a reference to those notes/information somewhere else (preferably, to me, inside RE somewhere...like on a dummy record).  If you have a lot of specific notes that need to be on just one constituent's record, in relation to the meeting, then Action might be the best option.


Consistency is definitely the key, though.  And I would be sure to create a system for your Event IDs or something on the Event record to easily group all board meetings together OR create a system (probably an Attribute) on the Actions to be able to grab all of them together in a Query. 


I would say an Action is more 1:1 communication and Event is more group communication.  With possible exceptions, of course. 

Jenny Marquardt

Thank you, Jen, I like what you said and all of the points you make.

Sunshine Reinken Watson

If you want to be able to attach media, record who did and did not attend, and other information, I would go with an event record. If you are just recording that a board member attended a meeting, actions should do the trick.

Jenny Marquardt

Thank you

Jen Claudy

Sunshine Watson:

If you want to be able to attach media, record who did and did not attend, and other information, I would go with an event record. If you are just recording that a board member attended a meeting, actions should do the trick.

Unless you have NXT, which has an Attachments Tile on Action Records.

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Jen Claudy:

Sunshine Watson:

If you want to be able to attach media, record who did and did not attend, and other information, I would go with an event record. If you are just recording that a board member attended a meeting, actions should do the trick.

Unless you have NXT, which has an Attachments Tile on Action Records.

 

True, but that could be time consuming if you have 30-40 board members attending.

Gina Gerhard

Jenny Physioc:

My colleague wants to record a board meeting as an Event.  I would prefer it was recorded as an Action.


I see an Action as stepsand recordings towards solicitation, cultivation, stewardship, information gathering, meetings, etc

The board meeting is discussing how to handle a particular membership and planning fior their events in the coming year.


I see an Event as a function 'we' hold for the 'outside' which helps friend raise or fund raise.


I am open to all opinions and not set in my way but I need to be consistent in how it is done. 

Please let me know a definition of an Action and an Event if you would please.  What is the best practice of where to record the information?


Anything you can offer would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!!!

Another benefit with keeping this information under an Event record is that if you ever decide you no longer need to track the attendance and other information, you can just easily delete the event record and it will retract the event on all the individual records as well.

Jenny Marquardt

Thank you, that's something to be considered.

I appreciate all the advice I have been given!