How would I code an alum who wants to be recognized in 2 class years?

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Judy Spigarelli
Judy Spigarelli Blackbaud Employee
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in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion

 I have an alum from 19XX who was ill his last year, so he returned and graduated in 19YY.  He would like to receive all information regarding both 19XX and 19YY.  Since I can only make one of the class years his primary alumni class of, how would you code him to ensure he's included in communication to both classes?  I appreciate your suggestions.

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  • Judy Spigarelli
    Judy Spigarelli Blackbaud Employee
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    Hello friends - though I originally asked this a long time ago, it holds true today. But I'd also like to expand on it...

    What do you do when they graduated later than planned but want to be associated with their intended class year? Do you change their Primary Alumni info to the year they request and keep the true graduation date?
  • Jeannie Goings
    Jeannie Goings
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    Judy Spigarelli‍ - just when you think you've settled on a policy an exception comes along to rock your world. For solicitation and event data, we report class of and year graduated, when the values are not the same, we have an attribute for identifies as. Seems silly to need three data points to tell the story, but it works for us. In a previous CRM, we used class of and identifies as interchangeably, but in that environment identifies as was Boolean value associated with class of.
  • Judy Spigarelli
    Judy Spigarelli Blackbaud Employee
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    Jeannie Goings:
    Judy Spigarelli‍ - just when you think you've settled on a policy an exception comes along to rock your world. For solicitation and event data, we report class of and year graduated, when the values are not the same, we have an attribute for identifies as. Seems silly to need three data points to tell the story, but it works for us. In a previous CRM, we used class of and identifies as interchangeably, but in that environment identifies as was Boolean value associated with class of.

    That's a lot to track. Congratulations on honoring your alumni preferences while tracking your data cleanly!

  • Karen Stuhlfeier
    Karen Stuhlfeier Community All-Star
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    Depends on if they're a donor or not ?
  • Lara Couture
    Lara Couture
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    Judy Spigarelli‍ We created an Attribute for the education record that we called social class year. We have several people that may relate more with another class than the one they graduated with. When we pull class lists we pull the primary OR the social class year.
  • Judy Spigarelli
    Judy Spigarelli Blackbaud Employee
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    Lara Couture‍, I like that you call it Social Class. That's a great idea and keeps it easy to understand.
  • Owen Norvell
    Owen Norvell
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    I'm relatively new to RE so bear with me: How do you ensure that a person is pulled for both years when sending out info? Is it as simple as always pulling a social year for mailings, or was an elaborate (to me) query created that ensures anyone with the Attribute year matching the graduation year is pulled?


    I'm more worried about having 10 or less folks in this situation and forgetting to pull them.

  • Judy Spigarelli
    Judy Spigarelli Blackbaud Employee
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    Owen Norvell:
    I'm relatively new to RE so bear with me: How do you ensure that a person is pulled for both years when sending out info? Is it as simple as always pulling a social year for mailings, or was an elaborate (to me) query created that ensures anyone with the Attribute year matching the graduation year is pulled?


    I'm more worried about having 10 or less folks in this situation and forgetting to pull them.

    Owen, that's a great question and as you'll hear often, there isn't one right answer. I agree it's very easy to miss someone when you have them coded two different ways. My best advice is to keep a procedure manual describing how your team decided to code these situations and when you use them (whether that is one code or two, for class listings or reunion, etc). For me personally, if I choose this route, I'll have a query that pulls Class Year = "????" or Education Relationship Attribute Social Class = "????". I'm more likely use their Primary Alumni Class of as the class they feel most connected to, and use the graduation date to reflect their true graduation. And, add NOTES! :)

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