Way to add multiple contacts at the same company where fields are prefilled?

Janet Smith 2 · December 2013

Posted by Susanna Sharp on 9-11-13

I've searched everywhere and the answer to this seems like it should be obvious, but it is NOT. Hoping someone will point me in the right direction. I have an Account that is a Business. This Business has three employees that I deal with. I created the Business Account. Now I want to add the three employees. I understand from customer service that the best way to do this is to have the Business plus three Personal Accounts and link them all via Relationships. I get that part. Question is, when 99% of the contact information is all the same, how do I add new Accounts and have all of the contact information from the first one copy over to the rest? If I have to manually add address, phone, fax, web site, etc, I'm going to waste an incredible amount of time. HOW DO I ACCOMPLISH THIS? Thanks Susanna ps: If it makes any difference, we are a tiny nonprofit using eTap to track our members and our funders, with a need for simple grant tracking.

Janet Smith 2 · December 2013

Also posted by Susanna Sharp

I should clarify that (in my scenario of multiple contacts at a company) AFTER the accounts are entered and the relationships established, if you make a change to any of the household members, eTap DOES then ask if you want that change to be effective for 1) that account only or 2) for all members of the household. But that's only AFTER they are in the system. It seems like such an obvious feature, I thought for sure I was missing something. To have to manually enter the same address information, web site, fax number, etc., to four different accounts, and THEN to have to individually create the relationships, is such a waste of time! It's unbelievable there's no button on the Primary that serves to effectively "Add a Member to This Household" and have the main pieces PLUS the relationship all achieved in one click. I'd think from a programming standpoint, this would not be difficult.

Janet Smith 2 · December 2013

Posted by Grace Strother on 9/12/13

Hi Susanna. You can use personas to copy addresses from a business to individuals who have a relationship with that business. The steps are in KB solution BB743608. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.

Janet Smith 2 · December 2013

Posted by Susanna Sharp on 9-12-13

OH. MY. GOD. Thank you so much! THIS IS THE ANSWER! This really IS possible! The solution is easy and absolutely the feature that I would expect to exist, but the steps are not at ALL intuitive. For the powers that be, the answer was not easily found through multiple searches of the Blackbaud resources. I spent at least an hour looking before posting on multiple forums (that, BTW, seem so underused I didn't actually expect a reply). I found this: ""If there are multiple contacts, enter multiple personas for the foundation, (contact 1, contact 2, etc.) The personas can be copied from one persona to another altering the particular contact person's personal information." It's a bit misleading (especially when compared to KB solution BB743608) and doesn't give an example of how to accomplish it. Even customer service in online help yesterday CONFIRMED to me that it was not possible. I realize that not every person can know every solution, but here's a snippet of that transcript: -- from Susanna to All Participants: "So a company with three employees has to be entered as four separate accounts and connected through relationships?" from [CS name] to All Participants: "That is correct" -- I'm guessing it was a misunderstanding. THANK YOU GRACE FOR THE ANSWER! (maybe time to update the documentation?)

Micah Moreno · January 2014

Janet Smith:
Posted by Susanna Sharp on 9-12-13

OH. MY. GOD. Thank you so much! THIS IS THE ANSWER! This really IS possible! The solution is easy and absolutely the feature that I would expect to exist, but the steps are not at ALL intuitive. For the powers that be, the answer was not easily found through multiple searches of the Blackbaud resources. I spent at least an hour looking before posting on multiple forums (that, BTW, seem so underused I didn't actually expect a reply). I found this: ""If there are multiple contacts, enter multiple personas for the foundation, (contact 1, contact 2, etc.) The personas can be copied from one persona to another altering the particular contact person's personal information." It's a bit misleading (especially when compared to KB solution BB743608) and doesn't give an example of how to accomplish it. Even customer service in online help yesterday CONFIRMED to me that it was not possible. I realize that not every person can know every solution, but here's a snippet of that transcript: -- from Susanna to All Participants: "So a company with three employees has to be entered as four separate accounts and connected through relationships?" from [CS name] to All Participants: "That is correct" -- I'm guessing it was a misunderstanding. THANK YOU GRACE FOR THE ANSWER! (maybe time to update the documentation?)

This may be related, but it may not be. For some of my accounts, I might have a business persona and a personal persona. Often, I might receive donations from both personas. Is there any way, through the journal, to denote which persona the donation came from? I code donations individual or corporate, but it seems as though there must be another route to do this other than through my "fund."

Micah Moreno

Program Services Coordinator

Darrell Gwynn Foundation

Samantha Frazier · February 2014

Micah Moreno:
This may be related, but it may not be. For some of my accounts, I might have a business persona and a personal persona. Often, I might receive donations from both personas. Is there any way, through the journal, to denote which persona the donation came from? I code donations individual or corporate, but it seems as though there must be another route to do this other than through my "fund."

Micah Moreno

Program Services Coordinator

Darrell Gwynn Foundation

Hi Micah,

We also have many businesses and personal donors that are in essence the same identity. The way we have solved it is to create 2 separate accounts for them, then link them with a relationship. This way, when we send out the donation statement, it is addressed and mailed to the 'donor'. I have found that larger businesses use this as a write off for the business. We have one donor that gives large amounts both personally and through their business. They need 2 separate statements.

I don't know which businesses are sole proprietary and which are LLC or Corp, so we treat them all the same. This becomes frustrating when they are paying towards a pledge and send check from both the business and personally. eTapestry hasn't found a good way to handle that one yet. We apply a soft credit and then adjust the pledge. A lot of extra work if you are working with pledges and receive checks towards them from both accounts.

Hope that helps some

Dana Kleinhesselink · December 2015

Here's what I do when they're all new Accounts: Add the Business first, and then go to Relationships. When you go to add the Relationship, you have to look up the intended Linked Account. There's also a link to "Add an Account" and that opens up a little Wizard. You can go through and enter all of the information, and when you get to Persona it says "Copy Persona from Relationship?" or whatever. Click that and it fills it the rest in.

The key to this is that you must be entering the new account through that wizard, not just linking an existing account.

Meg Bakke · February 2016

I was having this problem as we have many different individuals that assist us within a Hospital or Rehabilitation Office. I have created numerous personna's that are custom to our needs. After the business account is created, I then copy the information to a new personna that applies to the individual. I make the changes needed in the file, such as name and phone number. I have personnas for:

Resource Information

Donor

Event Contact

CEO/Owner

Volunteer

etc.

I have over 15 personna's and they are also matched in the user defined field of contacts so I can pull the information either way.

This is the only way I have been able to pull querries with the correct information for the individual I want to mail to.

The customer service individuals said it should be relationships but I explained that the relationship is with the organization and the individuals within the organization change often. Seems to be working for me.

Meg

Way to add multiple contacts at the same company where fields are prefilled?

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