Inactive Records

Taisha Elliott 2

How do others handle the Inactive checkbox on the Constituent accounts in Raiser's edge?  We are looking into Best Practices and would be interested in what others are doing.  For example do you use it for Organizations that go out of business?  Deceased Constituents? Thank you in advance for any insights. 

Dariel Dixon 2

I definitely wouldn't use it for deceased individuals because there's already a checkbox for that.  Same for No Valid Address.  Inactive really is some thing that I think your organization has to define for itself.  I think using the boxes that already exist, plus the use of solicit codes will help you determine what it could mean.  I've seen organizations use it to determine people who have a valid address, but are unresponsive to solicitations for several years.  I've seen it used for other reasons as well.


For organizations, I don't know how I would think about OOB.  I wouldn't just use a checkbox though, as there may need to be a note added on the record as well.

Megan Shackle

We discontinued use of the Inactive checkbox. After evaluating it, it seemed that there was no consistent use over the years. And most anything that we wanted to use if for was determinable through querying other fields anyhow. 

Christine Cooke 2

In all the places I've been I have never seen anything documented as to how and why they were using it and anything I could start to puzzle together indicated it was redundant.


So my policy has been to clean it up and then not use it.  Just because it's there doesn't mean you HAVE to use it.  That could be said for a lot of fields in RE.


 

Samantha Jones

We use for records that are


lapsed due to a lack of information

organization is out of business

or if we have been told that the relationship is lapsed by the Constituent


However, we also have a business rule that there has to be a corresponding note on the Notes Tab to explain why.  If at some point the record is made active again, the Note is either updated or deleted, depending on the circumstances.


It really is a great feature for quick suppression in queries.


The key though, is to have good documentation about how and when it is used, and for it to be kept clean and tidy.