Hi all,
I've been struggling with this issue for some time now and can't seem to find anything on it online. So here goes.
When a constituent in a household dies, we mark the individual as inactive and deceased and leave them in the household. If they are an A2, they stay there, and if they were an A1, we flip them with their alive spouse. We leave all constituencies, current and old ticket history and contributions under the Household account. We update salutations and everything to reflect only the alive spouse.
In Extractions, we suppress deceased people as to, of course, avoid sending them things (The "Search Household" button is unclicked and the "Leave the individual" option is selected). However, we still want to send things to the alive spouse, who needs to extracted for a mailing, based on either their giving history or their constituencies. The problem is, they simply do not show up. WHY?!
If anyone can shed any light or help, I'd greatly appreciate it!
Thanks,
Daniel
We use the same process at City Center that you describe for households with one deceased partner. However, we still pull the surviving spouse in all lists and extractions, so I'm puzzled why yours doesn't work.
Our suppression for deceased patrons is simply that they're inactive (Inactive Flag IN Inactive), so I'm not sure if something is going wrong for you there.
-- Mike
Assuming you are looking for the survivors by way of ID numbers (and not salutations), I would look for first in the exclusion segment(s), then the inclusion criteria, and finally in the details of salutations and addresses.
1) make a copy of your extraction and throw out all but the exclusions. Just make a list of known missing survivor subjects inserted beneath your former exclusions. See if they are pulled out by the “exclusion” criteria in this test extraction or make it to their “own” segment. If they are pulled out in the “exclusions” look carefully at your exclusion criteria, especially for how they’re handling household v. individual.
2) If they’re not in the former exclusions, that is, if they get selected by way of the hard list of known survivors in this test scenario, then you’d have to examine your other criteria such as contributions.
3) Finally, in a scenario like you describe, salutations offer one more place where something could go wrong. That is why I said, “assuming you’re looking for survivors by Individual and/or Household ID number. Salutations can get a little complicated in some processes by way of being tied to address types, even inactive addresses tied to active salutations and vice versa. You might have the right constituent ID in your extraction output, but the wrong salutation. This becomes even more likely if you have an artifact report or backend process (from before version 11) that ‘manufactures’ salutations out of name data.
John Trimble Data and Prospect ManagerDallas Symphony Orchestra Morton H. Meyerson Symphony CenterSchlegel Administrative Suites2301 Flora Street Dallas, Texas 75201 214-871-4041 - phone214-981-2988 - faxj.trimble@DalSym.comwww.dallassymphony.com
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Daniel ReinglassSent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 2:49 PMTo: John TrimbleSubject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Spouses of Deceased Constituents in Extractions
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Thanks for your response, Mike. Yes, that is exactly how my suppression is set up as well. My Database Manager and I are completely puzzled as well!
DRR
Would you happen to have added the Adult Member affiliation under the groups tab? That would pull in the household if only one person is coded inactive.
When I’m doing extractions I have one to select all inactive records.
I also have a line to suppress deceased patron accts who might have not been made inactive, due to an open contribution/order. Basically I have a list that looks for individual accounts marked deceased and also a list that is looking to see if both A1 and A2 are coded deceased to find those households.
T.C. Brown
Database Administrator
412.392.4834
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Daniel Reinglass Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 4:58 PM To: TC Brown Subject: Re: [Tessitura Development Forum] Spouses of Deceased Constituents in Extractions
From: Michael Mariano <bounce-michaelmariano2458@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 5/8/2014 3:27:43 PM
John,
Thanks for your suggestion! I did a test as you suggested using a list of the widows/widowers that we know should be pulled and it worked! I think there may be other things we can try as well, such as using affiliations to mark these people so that they can be pulled.
Per your latter point, we do not pull any data based on salutations, and only started in Tessitura a year ago, so we've always been in v11.
Thanks again!
Thanks, T.C. Yes, the living constituent is marked as an "Adult Member." And to your second point, all of our deceased patrons are marked inactive, with no open pledges or the like affecting their being pulled.
Thanks again for your input!
A useful somewhat hidden “feature” of Tess that we stumbled across is that if you change the deceased half of a couple from A2 to blank, Tess will automatically re-build the salutations and header without that name.
Jane Voytek
Donor Database Coordinator
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
510-647-2905
From: Tessitura Development Forum [mailto:forums-development@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Daniel ReinglassSent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 12:44 PMTo: Jane VoytekSubject: [Tessitura Development Forum] Spouses of Deceased Constituents in Extractions