6.1.1. Address Management

 

Policy

Address changes in Raiser’s Edge should be completed by users who have been properly trained in doing so. Addresses should only be changed when we have received valid information as to a new mailing address, an undeliverable mail piece, etc.

Please retain a returned mail piece for a few weeks, so that if someone would like to reference the change, they may do so.

Remember that the phone and email are now linked. So, if you add a new address, the other contact information will stay with it. It is critical to be sure that data, such as a cell phone or email are added back into the new address from the previous address.

The goal of Address Management is to capture as many correct mail-able addresses as possible while retaining phone numbers, e-mails and other information needed to contact the constituent. 

NOTE:  It has been the practice of CWU to retain former addresses in RE for information purposes.  These former addresses are of value when researching constituents, particularly if using an outside vendor.  It is not of value to retain past phone numbers and no attempt should be made to capture this information in a special way.  The goal is to have on Bio 1, aka the Preferred Address Block, a valid address, a home phone, and other phones such as cell, and e-mails addresses.

Procedure

Key Fields and Terms:

• Preferred – The preferred address is the address that appears on Bio 1 in Raiser’s Edge.  This is the address where the constituent will receive all mail.
• Address Type – This refers to the category of address as it pertains to the delivery of the mail.  The default for this field is “Home”.  The majority of records should have a “Home” address as their preferred address.  See Appendix A for Usage Parameters.
• Info Source – This refers to the last confirmation that the information about the addresses was correct or incorrect.  Example:  A constituent is called by the student callers for a donation.  New address information is obtained.  The source of this information becomes Constituent - telefunding.  See Appendix B for Usage Parameters.
• County – Washington State Counties ONLY.  If you don’t know the county, try to look it up on the Internet.  One page that has a list is found at http://www.mrsc.org/cityprofiles/citylist.aspx.

·Region Code – For the U.S. ONLY.  The regions in RE are defined (6.1.2) as:

5. Northwest – Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Washington, Wyoming
5. Southwest – Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Texas
5. Pacific – Hawaii
5. Mid-Atlantic – Delaware, D.C., Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia
6. Northeast – Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont
5. Mid-West – Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin
5. Southeast – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina.

Date From – This refers to the last date that an address was confirmed as correct.  A date from is a mandatory field for any address updates/changes or valid information confirmation.

Date To – This refers to the date that an address was confirmed as no longer valid.  “Past” addresses should have the Date From and Date To fields populated.

Entering Addresses

The required method of changing or adding address information in RE 7 is to use the Addresses tab.   From this tab, you can view the history of addresses and clean up any duplicate information, if needed.  You can also set column preferences to view specific information about the address, such as if they are linked or seasonal.

Scenario 1 – Adding a new address to an existing record with a preferred address.  Information has come from the alumni update form on the web page.

From a constituent record, select the Address tab.

Open the existing preferred address.  Go to the top bar and move curser to “Address”.  Select “copy preferred address to alternate”.  You will get a popup window that says “The preferred address was copied to an alternate address”  Click “OK”.

 

NOTE:  This step will copy the old information to an alternate address and change the address type to “past”.  This step will also automatically “uncheck” the box for send mail and remove this address as “preferred”  A Date To will also be automatically entered in the Date To field.

You now can type a new address into the address lines, city, state and Zip.  If there is new phone number information provided with this address, this can be updated under phone numbers.  DO NOT delete phone numbers if no other phone numbers is provided.  DO NOT delete e-mail information unless mail to this e-mail address has come back as undeliverable.

NOTE – Undeliverable e-mail addresses will be deleted from the preferred address block.  To know that an e-mail address is “undeliverable” the address must have been attempted by an approved e-mail communication i.e. NetSolutions, CWU Alumni Relations Office, Development Staff.

Required information for this new address include Address Type (i.e. home, business) the Info Source (who provided this new information – in this case Constituent should be selected).  Enter a Date From to indicate the date that this information was confirmed as correct.  For alumni records it is recommended that the county and region be filled out as well.

Save the new address.

Scenario 2 – Updating address information from return mail. Address marked as “undeliverable”

NOTE:  If possible, an attempt should be made to find a new address for the “lost” constituent by using a resource such as Switchboard.com or AlumniFinder.

From a constituent record, select the Address tab.

Open the existing preferred address.  Go to the top bar and move curser to “Address”.  Select “copy preferred address to alternate”.  You will get a popup window that says “The preferred address was copied to an alternate address”  Click “OK”.

On the address on the screen, delete the address lines, city, state and Zip.  DO NOT delete phone numbers if no other phone numbers is provided.  DO NOT delete e-mail information.  Change the address type to past.  Enter the source of this information.  Enter a Date To in the space provided.  Save this as the new “preferred” information.

IMPORTANT  - Go to Bio 1 and check the box “has no valid addresses”.

 

Scenario 3 – Updating a current “bad or lost address” with good information.

Open the existing preferred address that is marked as send no mail and past

Type the address information, address type (change from past), source, county and region.  Click yes in the send mailbox.  Click yes in the set to preferred address box.  Enter a date from.

If the new address is updated this way, all phones and e-mails will be retained in preferred.

IMPORTANT – Go to Bio 1 and uncheck the box that says “has no valid addresses”

 

Scenario 4 – Updating a new phone for a current record with a valid address. Example:  Information has come from the student callers for a new phone number.  For Phone Type Usage, See Appendix C.

On the address tab, open the preferred address.  Select the phone number for change.  Change the phone number.  Since this information,, including address, has been validated by student callers as correct, change the Info Source to Constituent - Telefunding.  Enter a Date From based on the date on the telefunding change report.

Save record.

Scenario 5 – Linked Spouses.  When updating an address for linked records, special attention is required to insure that the address changes are made on the preferred address in both records.

Note:  Joint constituencies.  Joint constituents exist when two individuals are linked as spouse and have their own record with unique ID #s.  To quickly see if a record has a linked spouse, view the arrow key at the top tool bar.  If it is grayed out, than the spouse is not a constituent, if it is black, then the spouse is a constituent.  Special consideration is given to linked records when processing donations and for mail processing. 

It is recommended that in the address columns the Linked? Field be displayed.  To change the columns, right click on the address bar and select column.  Choose which fields you wish to display.

To change an address for a constituent with a linked address, open the address tab and select the preferred address – the Linked? Indicator should be “yes”.  If it is “no” – see below.

Select “copy preferred address to alternate”.  You will get a popup window that says “The preferred address was copied to an alternate address”  Click “OK”.

You now can type a new address into the address lines, city, state and Zip for this new linked address.  The linkage of the addresses will be maintained if addresses are changed using this method.  Before you can save this change, you will get a pop up that says that “This address is shared with at leas one other record”.  Two choices are available:  Change this address on all records that share this address; or Change this address on this record only.  If you are unsure which addresses are shared, click the show shared addresses box.  For joint spouse records, to save the new address on both, check the button for “Change this address on all records that share this address” and hit OK.

 

If the address is not linked to a spouse, but the spouse is a constituent, the address will need to be linked in the address tab. 

Make the changes to the address as in Scenario 1.  Once these changes have been saved, go to the spouse record and open the address tab.  Click on New Address.  Click on Address.   Select “Copy/Share Address From Constituent.

Open the record that contains the address you want to link. A table with addresses will be displayed.

Select the new address that you want to link or share. Click OK.  Set this new address as preferred and save this address.

 

 

Other linked addresses

Raiser’s Edge will maintain address linkages between records if, overtime, relationships have been created for family or employers that at one time shared the same address, i.e. former spouses, children, parents, business.  If you save an address and get this warning, do the following:

 

Select the Show Shared Address box.

You may see that the address is linked to various relationships.  Select the “Change this address on all records that share this address”. 

NOTE:  Relationship addresses are not used for any mailing purposes at CWU.  Theses addresses are often incongruent with the preferred address of many of our constituents because the links have been broken.  Do not spend time updating relationship addresses.

The only time you DO NOT select the “Change this address on all records that share this address” option is when the address is linked to a business that may have other employees at the same company, but different addresses.  For more about business records, see the Business Record Section of this manual.

 

In this example the preferred address is shared with addresses in relationships with individuals who are constituents.  Any change to this address will prompt the box Address Link to pop up.  Choose the “Change this address on all records box to maintain the “current” address link on these relationship records.

Address Records for “spouse” who are not constituents.

Raiser’s Edge allows for a “spouse” relationship that can be viewed from the BIO 1 Tab.  This relationship is a mirror of the information in the relationship tab for an individual who is checked Spouse “yes”.

When a new spouse is added, RE automatically loads and links the address from BIO 1 (preferred address).  Overtime, if this link is broken, the spouse may have a different address than the constituent.  Because the “spouse address” is not ever used for mailing purposes, this is an inconsequential data issue. 

The results of not maintaining these linkages will be, overtime, incongruent addresses for spouse relationships.