Constituent Attributes - Start/End dates

Kim Swartout

New use alert - not live yet.


Where do you record constituent attribute- start and end date ranges. The date field only allows one date and comments seems a strange place to query from. Appreciate your thoughts.


Example: Parents Council member 5-1-17 to 5-1-18. We do not want this to be a constiuent code.


Thank you!

Tom Klimchak

It's been a while since we looked into this, but I think there are a few ways you can work around this..


Method 1: Create two attributes:  Parent Council Member START DATE and a second Attribute Parent Council Member END DATE.  This allows you to enter two dates.


Method 2: Create a DATE attribute.  Use Description for start date, and Date for end date.  Confusing, but works.


Method 3: Create a TEXT attribute, use Date for Start Date, and slap an end date in Comments.


Hmm.. are there other tricks?


Querying all these things is pretty straight forward, though sometimes a little annoying.  

Jen Claudy

If you are looking for alternatives to Attributes (and not Constituent Codes), you should search the Community for several posts about recording board members, committee members, etc. with Relationship Records, which provide many field options.  Gina Gerhard is one of the most experienced Community members using this method.


If you have the Volunteer Module, that may also be an option for this, using a specific Volunteer Type...even if the group you're tracking isn't technically volunteers.

Kim Swartout

Thank you. We had not even considered Volunteer Module.

Cheers.

​

Kimberly
Swartout

Senior Director of Donor Relations
and Stewardship

Hope College

DeWitt Student and Cultural Center

141 East 12th St., Holland, MI 49423

616.395.7339 | swartout@hope.edu

The function
of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think
critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true
education. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

-- This email is considered privileged
information and is confidential to the Hope College campus
community. --
 

Sunshine Reinken Watson

Kim Swartout:

New use alert - not live yet.


Where do you record constituent attribute- start and end date ranges. The date field only allows one date and comments seems a strange place to query from. Appreciate your thoughts.


Example: Parents Council member 5-1-17 to 5-1-18. We do not want this to be a constiuent code.


Thank you!

You can add "Parents Council" as an Organization Relationship and use the relationship start/end dates. Or add your organization as the relationship and designate "Parents Council" as a Contact Type, Relationship Type or Position (caution: Position is a free text field-misspellings could make the data difficult to pull).

Terri Chambers

Sunshine Watson:

Kim Swartout:

New use alert - not live yet.


Where do you record constituent attribute- start and end date ranges. The date field only allows one date and comments seems a strange place to query from. Appreciate your thoughts.


Example: Parents Council member 5-1-17 to 5-1-18. We do not want this to be a constiuent code.


Thank you!

You can add "Parents Council" as an Organization Relationship and use the relationship start/end dates. Or add your organization as the relationship and designate "Parents Council" as a Contact Type, Relationship Type or Position (caution: Position is a free text field-misspellings could make the data difficult to pull).

 

Like Sunshine Watson, I was going to suggest Relationships as an option to record this info.  Good luck!


~Terri

Karen Stuhlfeier

We use attributes and have specific dates as a table in the description. For erxample: The category is Consecutive Donor and the description has a table with: CD FY 12-13, CD FY 13-14, CD FY 14-15 etc. This would only work if you have consistent dates for these things like a FY or a school year.

Christine Cooke 2

Kim Swartout:

New use alert - not live yet.


Where do you record constituent attribute- start and end date ranges. The date field only allows one date and comments seems a strange place to query from. Appreciate your thoughts.


Example: Parents Council member 5-1-17 to 5-1-18. We do not want this to be a constiuent code.


Thank you!

Well there are a couple things I have done -- and I know others are giving you even more alternatives.


1.  If it is something that is always based on your fiscal year or a regular 12 month period I have entered the 2017-2018 in the Attribute Note and then I can query on that with no problem

2.  The other suggestion would be to have a Constit Record and then tie all the individuals through Relationship and utilize those To and From Dates in relationship

3.  Use the Org. constit record for Your Org and do the Relationshps there and utlize the Relation and Reciprocal and To and From Dates.  But I think that one is messier because you will end up with folks having multiple relationships all with different Relation/Recips.

 

Heather MacKenzie

Kim Swartout:

New use alert - not live yet.


Where do you record constituent attribute- start and end date ranges. The date field only allows one date and comments seems a strange place to query from. Appreciate your thoughts.


Example: Parents Council member 5-1-17 to 5-1-18. We do not want this to be a constiuent code.


Thank you!

We further define one of our constituent codes using an attribute, and here's how we handle the start date/end date factor.  When we have the current version of the attribute on the record, the date field is the start date.  When they become the former version of it, we change them to the former version attribute, and the date range goes into the comment field, then the date field becomes the start date of being the former version rather than the current version.