One of the big tasks ahead in the Next Generation project is redefining all the ways in which a constituent relates to other constituents. Today we call this Associations and we know that it doesn’t begin to cover all the bases. So just as we have in the past, we need you to help us out with your thoughts on any or all of the following questions:
1. What are the ways that constituents relate to one another, particularly ways that aren't so easy to track in Tessitura today? 2. What are some scenarios that describe ways that your business needs to communicate with different segments of related constituents? (A simple example: “Sometimes I need to send a mailing out with only one piece per household. But if I’m doing the same promotion in an email I need to send it to all the members of the household.”)3. One of the things we struggled with in designing Tessitura the first time was the whole name1/name2 construct. Is there a reason to treat spousal relationships differently than any other type of family/household relationship? 4. What other questions need to be asked about this topic?
Hi Chuck,I guess this is kind of in response to question 3.As you know the whole name1/name2 debate was a big part of the Chicago summitand I think most of the problems we found with the multiple relationships which have been mentioned in this thread like parent/child, spouses, partners, ex-spouses, custody, individual/employee/employer, business/business branches or locations etc. etc. we all (I believe) agreed could possibly be solved by dropping the n1/n2 model replacing it with a single constituent per record model that would be able to reflect our whole relationship with the constituent regardless of it being spousal, household or employment related. Obviously there would be lots of inherent questions and problems with this that would need figuring out, both on a technical level and on a relationship tracking level (tagging the relationship to a record and what happens to these records and tables in a divorce etc.) but I think we all felt that we were headed in the right direction with this type of account concept and I think a lot of the questions asked and some ideas about how to go about this were hopefully captured on tons of little post-its.
Fear not--we absolutely have all of the output from the Chicago Summit meeting captured. But this is a huge topic and we wanted to make sure that all members had a chance to weigh in, whether they were in Chicago or not.
Chuck, I agree and can't wait to read all the different points, concerns and problems people face with relationships. This was one of my favorite parts of the summit and I'm sure will be one of my favorite threads.
Ken, thank you for articulating so well what I kept tying to write all day and ended up deleting most of. Also, very interested in hearing offline how you got rid of the org. contact type.
Cheers!