Hello IOM Users,

We're working on two new functionalities for IOM and we need your feedback on how they should interact. The first is we are adding the ability to create a relationship between full constituent records (org or individual). The second is that we are adding support for importing relationship addresses. From our early tests it seems that, by default, if we create the relationship (for this example lets say between a constituent and an organization) the relationship address by default will be a copy of, and linked to, the org record's primary address. If we are also importing an address for the relationship (sorry, no advanced address processing form as there is only one address on a relationship), by default it would update that primary address because it is linked. Another option would be to have a setting in the IOM profile to break the link between relationship address and record address before updating the relationship address. This is no problem (and the current plan), but A) which setting should be the default? and B) are there other options we need here?

We appreciate your feedback, but please get it in early... it's easier to change now than it will be later!

Thanks,

Jeff

So, to make sure I understand - are you saying that, for example,

1) We are importing a new relationship between an individual constituent and an organization constituent, and
2) by default in your 1st design, the address will be a copy of and linked to the org record?

This is how the program operates now when I manually open an individual and make a link to an organization, or open an org and make a link to an individual. This makes sense in cases of org-to-ind/ind-to-org relationships. It's much less certain when making org-org relationships or ind-ind relationships - usually you don't want the address to change, as you're indicating a peer relationship, or a business partnership where both entities are separate and have distinct physical locations... If you could incorporate that level of complexity (i.e. auto-load the org address when an org/ind relationship, and leave addresses as is when loading org/org or ind/ind relationships) that seems ideal to me.

Then the second part of the question is:
1) If we supply address information for the relationship, it will automatically update the org record's primary address.
2) Do we prefer this set up, or should IOM have a setting in profiles to break the link before updating, and which should be the default?

From looking at it, I recommend a setting in the profile area that allows us to either keep or break the link, thus either auto-updating an org primary address or not per data file. I lean towards a default of NOT updating org primary addresses, as sometimes companies have representatives in many locations, but the primary address should be their global HQ.

I'm wondering if you have some sample scenarios where people would use this functionality (i.e. what are the use cases that are driving this improvement?). Those might suggest a default setting to start from.

It's an exciting option, and I look forward to hearing more about it.

I vote for not updating the org's address by default, as mentioned above.

 

I find this useful as we have a link to the HEP matching gift database on our online donation site.  We also have the HEP ID in Raiser's Edge as an attribute on orgs records that match gifts..  With a little nudging I can have the online donor supply this HEP ID and IOM can auto-link the donor to his employer.

 

Thanks O-Matic!

I agree that we NOT update the org address by default as outlined in Faith's response.