Omatic Support

Hi folks,

We rely heavily on the "Has No Valid Address" checkbox on the Bio 1 tab.  It is our primary suppression for bad addresses, and we use it systematically throughout every portion of our system, including suppressing bad addresses from receipt mailings.  We're also finding IOM to be a great tool for importing new addresses.

However, right now IOM does not offer a way to uncheck the "Has No Valid Address" box during the address update process.  Any other orgs out there using IOM that have noticed a similar issue?  How have you handled it? 

Right now we're manually running a query to find those whose address was just updated yet the "Has No Valid Address" checkbox is not unchecked.  Often, however, that query happens after our receipts have already been mailed.

We'd love to hear from each organization out there for whom this is an issue - let's build a (friendly feedback) case for IOM to incorporate this change into one of their upcoming updates!

Many thanks,

Faith

Hi Faith,

We are a new client and we would be interested in the same functionality. We use IOM primarily for online giving and people frequently give again with a new address after they have moved.

The one issue here is do we want the box automatically unchecked, or do we want some sort of dialogue box? One complexity is that if a donor has an invalid address but has been giving for a while, there will be a lot of letters that have built up to be send on their record. Unchecking that box would then trigger all the letters to be sent.

In talking further with my colleagues, we would be in favor of the box automatically being unchecked.

We would also like the new address to be linked to the non-constituent, or constituent spouse. Essentially, maintaining any existing address links.

Hi Faith and Charles,

Just thinking of hypothetical options here... If we were to implement this, would you rather
a) a checkbox on the advanced address processing form to clear the "No valid address" setting if it is checked
b) a messagebox that pops up after updating or adding an address that asks if you'd like to remove the "no valid address" flag (only if it was previously checked, of course), or
c) just have it automatically remove the flag any time you add or update an address

Thanks,
Jeff

From our staff who use IOM daily:

Any would work, but I prefer “c”, as it would be more streamlined. We would always click Yes to uncheck the box on any popup, so the automatic way sounds best.

Thanks for considering this!

I think C would work for our team, too. The only concern is that we have a few monthly donors that we import regularly that have an invalid address and they won't fix it even though we've asked them to many times. However, I still think option C would cover it. Thanks!

Would the invalid address checkbox be automatically removed on records that are updated with just phone or email information where there is no address inforamtion? Or would this only apply when there was information added to the address field? Also, is there not an option when adding new records to mark them with no valid address? We also heavily rely on this checkbox. We often import records that only contain a name and email address. Import-O-Matic is great for matching these records on email address, but when someone is not all ready in RE we mark these records as having no valid address.

Hi Nicole,

The No Valid addresses checkbox will not be marked automatically if you are just importing phone and email information. If you need the checkbox turned on, you would need to include it as a column in the data file and enter a value of "Yes" or "No" where it is appropriate for the constituents.

No, there is not a way to automatically flag new records with the " Has no valid addresses" checkbox through Import-O-Matic. You could consider having Import-O-Matic make an output query (Post Actions tab) of any newly added record and then using the Global Change tool to turn on the " Has no valid addresses" option on for all of those constituents.

Please let us know if you have additional questions.

Best,
Callie

Would it also be possible to include added processing controls such as changing the address type (ie Home to Former) , unchecking the 'send mail' box, adding start and/or end dates for addresses?

Raiser's edge itself uses a functionality where the old address is copied as an alternate (auto populating the type and end date fields) leaving the preferred address to be edited at will.

Hi Steven,

Thanks for the suggestion. We are currently beta testing a version of Import-O-Matic which is scheduled to be released this quarter that includes the ability to:

• Set Date From on old address and Date To on new
• Uncheck "Send Mail to this address" on old address
• Set address type of old address
• Copy phones/email addresses to new address
• Copy attributes from old to new address

I am sure that you will find this new functionality helpful. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

Best,
Callie