2 Addresses for a Constituent

Gail Edgar · June 2015

Sorry if this is a really stupid question (quite new to RE!) but wonder if someone can help me? Constituents often give us 2 sets of address details - one being a temporary address up to a certain date and the other the new address that they will be moving to from a certain date in the future. How do we get Raiser's Edge to update the constituent record with the new address details at the relevant time or do we have to do this manually? We have tried using the date fields within RE saying when the old address is no longer valid and the new address should start but this doesn't have any effect. Do I therefore have to run a query say every week to see if any addresses need updating or is there an easier way to solve this problem?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Gail

Carolyn Moatz · June 2015

If the temporary address is seasonal, and not just temporary, you can use the seasonal dates. For example, if someone has a summer house, we'd set those dates from June 1 to August 31 (or differently if they tell us). However this only works if they do it every year. You'd be able to use them to catch people if you don't want to update frequently, but you would need to run a query of those that have expired to change the prefered address to the new one and remove the seasonal dates from them.

Alan French · June 2015

Hi Gail,

The valid to and from dates don't trigger anything to happen on the constituent record - probably just as well as we have constituents with multiple open-ended or overlapping address dates!

The seasonal to and from dates can be used in some reports to determine which address to show on the report but also don't trigger any changes on the constituent record itself.

If you have a lot of addresses to amend then you could build a query to identify them and then use Import to change which one is marked as preferred. Assuming you aren't on v7.94, you may also need to think about moving/copying phone numbers and emails if they aren't currently on both addresses.

If you're not familiar with Import then there is some really useful information in these guides:

https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/guides/re7/import_tutorial.pdf (address updates are discussed on p6)

https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/guides/re7/import.pdf (a list of fields available in a constituent address import is on p130)

Alan

Christine Robertson · June 2015

Also, the dates on addresses help the most when you process mailing lists through Mail. There is a tab where you can select addresses based upon date and use your seasonal addresses at that time.

Gail Edgar · June 2015

Thank you very much for your helpful responses.

Gail

2 Addresses for a Constituent

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