Primary Addressee and Primary Salutation

Claudia Bickel

Hello All!


We are at a standstill in trying to write a formula for our primary addressee and primary salutation fields in RE database view. We would like to have the formula read one way for single constituents and a different way for married:


Jane Doe '82  (single)

Jane '82 and John Doe  (married)


Is there any way to tell the system to choose one formula for a single person and a second formula for a married person? In other words, to program it for an "if, then" scenario?


The reason is that the only way we can see to create a formula that includes the single person's last name is to write it as follows:

First Name + Last Name + class year AND First Name + class year + Last Name  (system knows to leave off anything after the "AND" if spouse fields are not populated in bio1 window)

(Jane Doe '82 and John Doe)


If we went with formula that does not include the last name before the AND, this would result in a listing for single constituents:

Jane '82     (no last name)


I hope someone out there has encountered this dilemma. We are sorely in need of help with this as leadership would very much like to see the listing above and we don't know how to make it happen....


Claudia






 

Heather MacKenzie

Claudia Bickel:

Hello All!


We are at a standstill in trying to write a formula for our primary addressee and primary salutation fields in RE database view. We would like to have the formula read one way for single constituents and a different way for married:


Jane Doe '82  (single)

Jane '82 and John Doe  (married)


Is there any way to tell the system to choose one formula for a single person and a second formula for a married person? In other words, to program it for an "if, then" scenario?


The reason is that the only way we can see to create a formula that includes the single person's last name is to write it as follows:

First Name + Last Name + class year AND First Name + class year + Last Name  (system knows to leave off anything after the "AND" if spouse fields are not populated in bio1 window)

(Jane Doe '82 and John Doe)


If we went with formula that does not include the last name before the AND, this would result in a listing for single constituents:

Jane '82     (no last name)


I hope someone out there has encountered this dilemma. We are sorely in need of help with this as leadership would very much like to see the listing above and we don't know how to make it happen....


Claudia






 

Hi Claudia,


I don't know of any way to make this an automatic thing, but to make it easier manually, it's possible to move your new formulas to the top of the list and make them easy to find anyway.  On the page where the formulas live, there's an up/down button that can help, and I think I perhaps remember that you can click and drag them to move them around in the list.

Christine Cooke 2

Claudia Bickel:

Hello All!


We are at a standstill in trying to write a formula for our primary addressee and primary salutation fields in RE database view. We would like to have the formula read one way for single constituents and a different way for married:


Jane Doe '82  (single)

Jane '82 and John Doe  (married)


Is there any way to tell the system to choose one formula for a single person and a second formula for a married person? In other words, to program it for an "if, then" scenario?


The reason is that the only way we can see to create a formula that includes the single person's last name is to write it as follows:

First Name + Last Name + class year AND First Name + class year + Last Name  (system knows to leave off anything after the "AND" if spouse fields are not populated in bio1 window)

(Jane Doe '82 and John Doe)


If we went with formula that does not include the last name before the AND, this would result in a listing for single constituents:

Jane '82     (no last name)


I hope someone out there has encountered this dilemma. We are sorely in need of help with this as leadership would very much like to see the listing above and we don't know how to make it happen....


Claudia






 

You can to some extent -- but depending on who the alum is, you will have to have a few choices so that the correct name falls first.  If you add the spouse name to the configuration and there is no spouse, then it will not show a name, which is fine, but it does mess with the placement of the year.  That is why you need to have a couple different choices depending on the situation.  I have done this for several schools -- each having a slightly different preference as to where the year is placed along with the maiden names and married names.

Graham Getty

Just use the Smart options for Spouse so the "and" as well as any Spouse Options will vanish if no spouse is present.


Screenshot here:



 

Jen Claudy

If you can't solve all of your needs with one Format, consider using Default Sets to choose Addressee/Salutation Formats.  You would still need to manually choose the Default Set, however, you could enter records without Addr/Sal and then periodically run thru a Query of those new records and use the Default Set to add the Addressee/Salutations.  If you sort this Query, you can use the [<<] [<] [>] [>>] buttons to move thru the Query and use [Shift+F2] to load the most recently used Default Set...when you get to the next "set" of records, select a new Default Set on the first one, and then [Shift+F2] again.  If you're looking at really huge numbers of records, you can also use Global Add or Global Change (I think the latter) to do this, just set the Query Criteria to include only one "set" at a time.  Or Import, but then you need to know the System Number for each Format.


Before you start doing anything like this, test your Default Sets and/or Global Changes on a couple of records to be sure you know exactly how they will work.