7.96 Patch 8 Change to Gender Field

Jen Claudy · February 2018

Excited to see the ability to edit the options for the [Gender] field. However, in addition to [Gender] changed to a blank entry in Default Sets (see this KB article), I've also noticed that there is a change in Query. I have a Query that had the [Gender] field as an Output before Patch 8 was installed. After Patch 8 installation, that field now appears in Output as [Sex]. Looking at the field options (in Query), I see both [Gender] and [Sex]. But looking at a Constituent Record, I only see [Gender].

So what happened? Do I need to update the field in every affected Query (and possibly Export, Mail, etc.) from [Sex] to [Gender]? It appears that RE auto-updates the [Sex] field with whatever is selected for the [Gender] field (intentional redundancy?)...at least in this one Query I just tested with. So maybe just remember that on a record, it's [Gender] and everywhere else it's [Sex]...

If anyone has further information about this, how best to use the fields currently, and if more changes are coming with future patches, please share!

Carlene Johnson · February 2018

Jen Claudy:

Excited to see the ability to edit the options for the [Gender] field. However, in addition to [Gender] changed to a blank entry in Default Sets (see this KB article), I've also noticed that there is a change in Query. I have a Query that had the [Gender] field as an Output before Patch 8 was installed. After Patch 8 installation, that field now appears in Output as [Sex]. Looking at the field options (in Query), I see both [Gender] and [Sex]. But looking at a Constituent Record, I only see [Gender].

So what happened? Do I need to update the field in every affected Query (and possibly Export, Mail, etc.) from [Sex] to [Gender]? It appears that RE auto-updates the [Sex] field with whatever is selected for the [Gender] field (intentional redundancy?)...at least in this one Query I just tested with. So maybe just remember that on a record, it's [Gender] and everywhere else it's [Sex]...

If anyone has further information about this, how best to use the fields currently, and if more changes are coming with future patches, please share!

Interesting to know about! I'm upgrading soon and will be eager to see what happens with those fields!

Steven Cinquegrana 2 · February 2018

I wonder if there is a new Sex field in Config/Fields/Constituent and whether it needs to be enabled (ie, Hidden unchecked).

I can understand the differentiation between the two - physical versus identified - but I would have expected both to be displayed by default on the record - and for Sex to default to the Gender value - after a change like this. I don't have the patch installed yet but will have a poke around when I do.

Cheers,

Steve Cinquegrana | CEO and Principal Developer | Protégé Solutions

Jen Claudy · February 2018

Good thought, Steven, but nope...[Gender] is the only Field appearing in [Config]. It does make sense to have two separate Fields, but I think they should both appear on the Constituent Record and the field used in existing Queries, Exports, etc. should still be [Gender]. I wonder if this is how the change was made...if [Gender] was renamed to [Sex] and then a new [Gender] field created, with values copied from [Sex]. Then someone forgot to update Query, etc. But I only know enough about programming to think I have a clue!

Anne Herbert · February 2018

After the change we now have 2 fields: Gender and Gender_OLD. When I checked my exports they were pointing to Gender as usual, so that appears to be ok (I'll double check once we start using it to make sure it exports the new genders). I couldn't quickly find a query with gender in it to see if that was impacted. We are hosted.

Steven Cinquegrana 2 · February 2018

It's a bit bizarre, no? The release I read, from memory, said only that additional genders could now be added but that Unknown, Female and Male couldn't be changed/deleted (for backward compatibility probably).

So where this - redundant? - Sex field has come from, I have no idea. It seems superfluous if you have a more flexible Gender field with most people referring to gender these days as how the person identifies as opposed to their genetic physicality. (The latter is unlikely to be provided specifically by a Constituent in any case!)

So, it seems to me that something quite straight-forward has been over-complicated and possible not implemented as advertised. Let's hope a Blackbaud person responds shortly.

John Heizer · February 2018

Steven Cinquegrana:

I wonder if there is a new Sex field in Config/Fields/Constituent and whether it needs to be enabled (ie, Hidden unchecked).

I can understand the differentiation between the two - physical versus identified - but I would have expected both to be displayed by default on the record - and for Sex to default to the Gender value - after a change like this. I don't have the patch installed yet but will have a poke around when I do.

Cheers,

Steve Cinquegrana | CEO and Principal Developer | Protégé Solutions

Has anyone looked at the underlying database structure to see what changed? What's documented in the data dictionary/API documentation?

Steven Cinquegrana 2 · February 2018

I don't have the patch installed yet, John, and probably won't for a while yet.

Jen, Anne, are you in a position to check/report back on this?

Cheers, Steve

Jen Claudy · February 2018

I don't have access to a Local Install with Patch 8, so I don't think I can do this...

Lisa Slawinski · March 2018

Jen Claudy:

I don't have access to a Local Install with Patch 8, so I don't think I can do this...

While I'm jumping in on this conversation a bit late, we too will be upgrading very shortly (as in this Friday), and reading through a few posts regarding the Patch, I'm not thrilled. It sounds as if coding and programming was not thought through (no surprise here, as Blackbaud tends to roll out some software upgrades and apologies later) and I will have to wade through the changes manually. Doesn't sound like a cup of tea to me...

Jarod Bonino · March 2018

Hey everyone!

I'm a little late to the party here but I'll try to clarify a few things.

As mentioned above, Patch 8 does introduce a new feature that effectively gives RE users the ability to add and track new gender options on their constituent records.

I'll try not to get too far in the weeds with the details, but in order to do this we couldn't just remove the old Gender field or change the field type, because that would have effecively broken any and all existing integrations with the field (BBNC, EE, Import-Omatic, etc). So the way we effectively did this (so as not to break existing integrations) was by renaming the old "Gender" field to "Sex" and adding a new "Gender" field that effectively functions as a table.

We made every attempt within the product to update anything that was pointed to the old Gender field (now "Sex") to now point to the new Gender field after the release, but we were fully aware that we may miss a couple of areas. It appears as though you have discovered one of them (Saved queries). Another benefit of the overall strategy for leaving the "Sex" field in place behind the scenes is that the "worst case scenarios" for things like this are not too damaging. So while it was our intent to update all output (your saved query output field in this case) to the new Gender field, it appears there was a miss. If you're not using any user-defined Gender values on Constituents, this is not really a concern because the field will continue to return "Male/Female/Unknown" according to the settings on each Constituent. However, if you are using any new user-defined Gender options, I would recommend changing your output to the current "Gender" field (instead of "Sex").

As far as the reference to a "Gender2" field goes, if any database already had a code table named "Gender" (perhaps they implemented their own version of customizable Genders via Attributes), we renamed that table to "Gender2" so that there wouldn't be issues or conflicts with our new field (which introduces a code table named "Gender".

I know the explanation here is a bit confusing, but hopefully this explanation helps a bit to convey what it is you are seeing.

I would encourage you to report any areas within RE that do not appear to be using the new Gender values correctly to our support team and we'll work with them to get the issues resolved to our best ability.

Thanks,

Jarod Bonino

Product Manager, Raiser's Edge

Barbara Schlichter · March 2018

In constituent batch there is the sex field and we have been putting in the correct word (male, female), however, when the batch was committed the gender field on the constituent's record is now populated with the word Unknown. What a PIA because now I have to go into each record and change it accordingly. I noticed when I opened the Batch and looked at the fields, there is the sex field and also a gender field. I put the gender field into the Batch and tried to remove the sex field, but received an error, which I attached. I'm not sure if this is happening to any other site, but just so you're aware, I thought I'd write it down! I just found out that the sex is also populated with Unknown on the Relationship tab

Barbara

7.96 Patch 8 Change to Gender Field

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