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 have a few thoughts to add on assocations:
1. The way are displayed is makes it difficult to read and they are not easily searchable (i would suggest a list of names and relationship types that you can click into)
2. They should be listed alphabetically by organization/surname
3. Contact information needs to be stored in an organized way especially for corp/trust contacts who don’t have their own records
4. They don’t necessarily need to be divided into employment/family/other as this can be defined in the exact nature of the relationship
5. You should be able to invite associations to activities
All the best,
Ruth
As Ray noted, family relationships are problematic for the Science Museum as well - not only children to parents but also to grandparents (since Grandma and Grandpa have a membership that covers their entry) and to friends and neighbors (since they may only sign up for a class if they can take it with a friend and we need to know that it's ok for them to ride home with Susie's mom).
Schools to teachers is another complicated relationship because one school has multiple teachers and teachers often change schools, but we still have a need to see the big picture of how many times a school has attended as well as the small picture of which specific teachers are bringing groups to us and if they have a personal relationship with us as well.
Another question around this subject that I see as important is: What function does a relationship perform? Do they confer some sort of benefit? Are they simply for tracking purposes? Can one relationship do something different than another relationship? A business need we have is for a way to sell a membership that included a 3rd named adult whether it is a live-in grandparent, nanny, or college-age child. This relationship would need to be trackable so that we can confer benefits and watch renewal trends, but in other ways we may need to treat this person as a separate individual.
The spousal question is a tough one. I do see value in tracking how related groups of people interact with the museum, but perhaps some way of defining a 'household' would be of more value since the spousal relationship is a very small part of this. The important part, to me, is knowing who belongs together and making sure we are identifying, tracking, and marketing to them correctly.
From: Ruth Forrester <bounce-ruthforrester6202@tessituranetwork.com>| Sent: 10/19/2009 5:37:19 AM|
Just a quick follow up question on the membership relationship that was described. Suppose I buy a family membership and the membership is for myself and my friend, Tom. Then Tom buys a family membership for himself and his grandchildren. What is Tom then? A member twice? How do you count him?
It's an interesting concept because you might almost say that there is a Chuck/Tom constituent and a Tom/grandchildren constituent for purposes of this membership but it starts to get a bit confusing!
From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com>| Sent: 10/19/2009 10:50:42 AM|
From: Ruth Forrester <bounce-ruthforrester6202@tessituranetwork.com>| | Sent: 10/19/2009 5:37:19 AM| |
I think an interesting aspect of Beth’s reply is that she speaks of their “rule”. Different organizations will have different rules. The key from a design standpoint is that we need to be able to define the rules as they pertain to our organizations. While Beth’s organization has a rule that says the membership can only cover one “family’s worth” of kids, another organization may prefer to give the person credit for multiple memberships.
I feel we need to devise a way to establish the fact that a relationship exists and then be able to apply rules that govern what happens from a transactional perspective when a particular relationship exists.
Dan
From: Tessitura Next Generation Forum [mailto:forums-nextgeneration@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Beth Varro Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:35 AM To: Spees, Daniel Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone?
Great question, Chuck! The particular case you mention actually happens now. It's not perfect, but we do have a system for it. Basically, the "rule" is that the membership can only cover one "family's worth" of kids. If you bought the family membership to cover yourself and YOUR children or grandchildren, you could still list Tom as name 2, and he can help with child care, etc. However, if Tom wanted HIS kids/grandkids to be covered, he would need to buy a separate membership. Granted, this all relies heavily on the patron being honest with us, and on our operators catching these details, but I'd say it works 98% of the time. If you called me and asked this question as a prospective or current member, I would advise that you NOT list Tom as name 2 - he'll be covered on his own membership with his grandkids. Basically, we as staff would "fix" the situation so that we don't have a Chuck/Tom constituent and a Tom/grandkids constituent - instead, we would work with you to develop a Chuck/grandkids/other additional guest constituent and a Tom/grandkids constituent. If you visited together, everyone would still be covered correctly, but without Tom being on 2 memberships. Because you're right that everyone would get very confused if that happened. That does, however, raise the question of how you handle this case if it becomes more common when adding additional adults becomes an option. In large part, I think discussions of where kids are covered would be something we would need to set business process rules around. We also have quite a few museums and zoos in our area who already offer the "additional adult" option, so I will check with them and see how they handle this. The main problem to avoid that I can see is that people not add an additional adult AND all that adult's children. I'll reply back again if I learn anything interesting from my other contacts on this. Beth * * * * * All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass. Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information. Elizabeth A Varro Membership Manager Science Museum of Minnesota (651) 265-9829 ----- "Chuck Reif" <bounce-chuckreif3941@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | From: "Chuck Reif" <bounce-chuckreif3941@tessituranetwork.com> | To: bvarro@smm.org | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:10:17 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone? | |
|
From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com> | Sent: 10/19/2009 10:50:42 AM |
| As the Membership Manager at the Science Museum, I'd like to add some specificity to Ray and Kjersten's thoughts. A few points to consider: | | 1) We very intentionally do not define who counts as a "household" for purposes of a membership. The two people may be married, unmarried, divorced but sharing custody, or it may not be a "partner" relationship at all - it may be a mother and son, or two friends. Right now we just list them as name 1 and name 2 and hope for the best, but it would be nice to be able to add specificity to that relationship when we have it. However, adding that specificity would have to be easy to do, as the frontline staff would be the best candidates for that task, and it can't slow them down. | | 2) As Kjersten said, we really want to be able to add additional adults to a membership, both to increase our revenue and to meet customer needs. People have nannies and PCAs who bring the kids: they want those care-givers covered. Or maybe it's Grandpa who brings them. Or, as Kjersten said, they may have a live-in grandparent or adult child who they'd like covered. As I see it, the key here is to have both flexibility of relationships (perhaps some designated way to indicate relationships between two people with a system table that we can populate ourselves to meet our needs?), and also to have flexibility in membership functionality - e.g. the membership is somehow tied to each person who is covered by it, and the expiration date, level, and other benefit info displays on the record of each of those individuals. | | 3) Another thing to consider in this vein would be name changes. Perhaps it's because a spouse passes away, and then an adult child is listed as name 2. Maybe the patron bought tickets with a significant other, and when they return 2 years later they are no longer with that person. We tend to hit some bumps when we change names, as we then lose the history of that relationship, and maybe even all history that the person who is deleted ever existed. I'm sure our development department would love to have a solid, easy-to-access, automated history of what name was changed when and why; any tracking of history right now depends on whether the operator put good notes in the system. | | Beth | | * * * * * | All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass. | | Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information. | | Elizabeth A Varro | Membership Manager | Science Museum of Minnesota | (651) 265-9829 | | ----- "Kjersten Schladetzky" <bounce-kjerstenschladetzky7557@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | | From: "Kjersten Schladetzky" <bounce-kjerstenschladetzky7557@tessituranetwork.com> | | To: bvarro@smm.org | | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 9:50:15 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central | | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone? | | | |
| |
From: Ruth Forrester <bounce-ruthforrester6202@tessituranetwork.com> | | Sent: 10/19/2009 5:37:19 AM | |
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From: Tessitura Next Generation Forum [mailto:forums-nextgeneration@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Beth Varro| Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:35 AM| To: Spees, Daniel| Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone?
Great question, Chuck! The particular case you mention actually happens now. It's not perfect, but we do have a system for it. Basically, the "rule" is that the membership can only cover one "family's worth" of kids. If you bought the family membership to cover yourself and YOUR children or grandchildren, you could still list Tom as name 2, and he can help with child care, etc. However, if Tom wanted HIS kids/grandkids to be covered, he would need to buy a separate membership. | | Granted, this all relies heavily on the patron being honest with us, and on our operators catching these details, but I'd say it works 98% of the time. If you called me and asked this question as a prospective or current member, I would advise that you NOT list Tom as name 2 - he'll be covered on his own membership with his grandkids. Basically, we as staff would "fix" the situation so that we don't have a Chuck/Tom constituent and a Tom/grandkids constituent - instead, we would work with you to develop a Chuck/grandkids/other additional guest constituent and a Tom/grandkids constituent. If you visited together, everyone would still be covered correctly, but without Tom being on 2 memberships. Because you're right that everyone would get very confused if that happened.| | That does, however, raise the question of how you handle this case if it becomes more common when adding additional adults becomes an option. In large part, I think discussions of where kids are covered would be something we would need to set business process rules around. We also have quite a few museums and zoos in our area who already offer the "additional adult" option, so I will check with them and see how they handle this. The main problem to avoid that I can see is that people not add an additional adult AND all that adult's children.| | I'll reply back again if I learn anything interesting from my other contacts on this.| | Beth| | * * * * *| All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass.| | Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information.| | Elizabeth A Varro| Membership Manager| Science Museum of Minnesota| (651) 265-9829| | ----- "Chuck Reif" <bounce-chuckreif3941@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | | From: "Chuck Reif" <bounce-chuckreif3941@tessituranetwork.com>| | To: bvarro@smm.org| | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:10:17 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central| | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone?| || |
From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com>| | Sent: 10/19/2009 10:50:42 AM| |
| As the Membership Manager at the Science Museum, I'd like to add some specificity to Ray and Kjersten's thoughts. A few points to consider:| | | | 1) We very intentionally do not define who counts as a "household" for purposes of a membership. The two people may be married, unmarried, divorced but sharing custody, or it may not be a "partner" relationship at all - it may be a mother and son, or two friends. Right now we just list them as name 1 and name 2 and hope for the best, but it would be nice to be able to add specificity to that relationship when we have it. However, adding that specificity would have to be easy to do, as the frontline staff would be the best candidates for that task, and it can't slow them down.| | | | 2) As Kjersten said, we really want to be able to add additional adults to a membership, both to increase our revenue and to meet customer needs. People have nannies and PCAs who bring the kids: they want those care-givers covered. Or maybe it's Grandpa who brings them. Or, as Kjersten said, they may have a live-in grandparent or adult child who they'd like covered. As I see it, the key here is to have both flexibility of relationships (perhaps some designated way to indicate relationships between two people with a system table that we can populate ourselves to meet our needs?), and also to have flexibility in membership functionality - e.g. the membership is somehow tied to each person who is covered by it, and the expiration date, level, and other benefit info displays on the record of each of those individuals. | | | | 3) Another thing to consider in this vein would be name changes. Perhaps it's because a spouse passes away, and then an adult child is listed as name 2. Maybe the patron bought tickets with a significant other, and when they return 2 years later they are no longer with that person. We tend to hit some bumps when we change names, as we then lose the history of that relationship, and maybe even all history that the person who is deleted ever existed. I'm sure our development department would love to have a solid, easy-to-access, automated history of what name was changed when and why; any tracking of history right now depends on whether the operator put good notes in the system.| | | | Beth| | | | * * * * *| | All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass.| | | | Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information.| | | | Elizabeth A Varro| | Membership Manager| | Science Museum of Minnesota| | (651) 265-9829| | | | ----- "Kjersten Schladetzky" <bounce-kjerstenschladetzky7557@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | | | From: "Kjersten Schladetzky" <bounce-kjerstenschladetzky7557@tessituranetwork.com>| | | To: bvarro@smm.org| | | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 9:50:15 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central| | | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone?| | || | |
From: Ruth Forrester <bounce-ruthforrester6202@tessituranetwork.com>| | | Sent: 10/19/2009 5:37:19 AM| | |
| | | | | | --| | | View this message online at: http://www.tessituranetwork.com/COMMUNITY/forums/p/1369/4590.aspx#4590| | | --| | | You were sent this message automatically by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Next Generation forum email notifications. You may reply to this message or visit the site to reply to the post above. If replying via email, please consider deleting the previous message text before sending to help with readability on the site. Thank you!
| | | Spam| | | Not spam| | | Forget previous vote| | |
| | | | --| | View this message online at: http://www.tessituranetwork.com/COMMUNITY/forums/p/1369/4593.aspx#4593| | --| | You were sent this message automatically by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Next Generation forum email notifications. You may reply to this message or visit the site to reply to the post above. If replying via email, please consider deleting the previous message text before sending to help with readability on the site. Thank you!
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| | | You were sent this message automatically by www.tessituranetwork.com because you subscribed to the Tessitura Next Generation forum email notifications. You may reply to this message or visit the site to reply to the post above. If replying via email, please consider deleting the previous message text before sending to help with readability on the site. Thank you!
I'd like to focus on your #3 about a "spousal" relationship. A spousal relationship is already treated differently than other family/household relationships - in both subtle and straightforward ways. This is really important and this is a long answer. And these are only my initial observations =) Some examples and some thoughts: 1) The wife calls and expects us to know who her husband is - she might even use his name in identifying herself to us. "Hello, it's Mrs. Bond. James Bond." We have to be able to find her (Hello Sasha) and confirm her relationship to him as a person who is "qualified" to make ticket exchanges, make ticket donations, etc. on the account of James and Sasha Bond. Other family members will call and say, "I'm calling on behalf of my sister Sasha Bond." 2) Spouses are automatically "qualified" to do a multitude of things that other family/household members are not necessarily able to do. Charge things to each others credit cards, ask for payment receipts and duplicate tax reciepts, request seating changes. Inquire about the status of requests and update the requests -- "James told me he asked for box seats, I don't like being that far back. Put us in the front row. He will be happier there. You have the visa ending in 0077? Charge that card for the upgrade." 3) The types of comments and observations we record about patrons are applicable to both spouses, or not. "Wife loves education. Husband loves opera with a beautiful soprano in the lead role." I might pitch them a sponsorship where a beautiful cast member hosts an education program (so long as I read the comments somewhat in proximity to each other and can make the connection.) On the flip side - "The Bonds are great additions to any table. They can converse in three languages and have homes in a variety of winemaking regions around the world." These comments apply equally to both spouses. 4) A spousal relationship is a legal one. What's Husband's is Wife's and vice versa - this leads to lots of behaviors that operators can/can't, do/don't, and will/won't do. As I think about it, most of our internal processes are set up to ensure that subscriptions are retained by the same couple, and that payment transactions/contributions are correct. For instance, Suzy can't access her account via the web, and delete Jack, then three days later request duplicate receipts for all the donations that "they gave" with only her name on them. Ditto for Jack crossing out Suzy's name and adding someone else's name when he returns the payment for subscription tickets. All sorts of red flags get thrown up. 5) Tax receipts are sent with the name(s) on the account to the address on the account - we let the couple take it from there in terms of "who" gets the tax deduction. If the $$ came from a check with only the wife's name on it, we put it into the account of the couple, and if the wife does her taxes separately and is going to take the deduction, fine, and completely not our business. But husband and wife both get acknowledged for the donation (if they have their program listing set up this way) - they both get invited to everything that they qualify for, etc. We wouldn't start sending invitations to donor events with just the wife's name because the wife charged a contribution to her credit card when there is a long history of the couple's support of the opera. 6) Subscriptions are in both account names. We don't assign the aisle to Husband (N1) and the inner to the wife (N2). This becomes an issue for spouses when there is a divorce (sigh) or if one spouse dies and the surviving spouse wants to give up one seat, in which case they usually keep the aisle. This point about ticket assignments cannot be overlooked or minimized for performing arts orginizations. The spousal relationship supercedes our ability to arbitrarily make a ticket location assignment for multiple seat subscriptions in particular. I could really get into this example, but will stop here for now. 7) Husbands and wives frequently use each others credit cards and we store them on the account. If Husband calls and wants to use wife's credit card - especially if it is a couple that use different surnames - we can see that the credit card is ok, etc. and move ahead with the transaction. 8) Finally, though it seems a little obvious, a person is only the spouse of one other person. That to me makes the relationship both different, and special.
I'd like to focus on your #3 about a "spousal" relationship. A spousal relationship is already treated differently than other family/household relationships - in both subtle and straightforward ways. This is really important and this is a long answer. And these are only my initial observations =) Some examples and some thoughts:
1) The wife calls and expects us to know who her husband is - she might even use his name in identifying herself to us. "Hello, it's Mrs. Bond. James Bond." We have to be able to find her (Hello Sasha) and confirm her relationship to him as a person who is "qualified" to make ticket exchanges, make ticket donations, etc. on the account of James and Sasha Bond. Other family members will call and say, "I'm calling on behalf of my sister Sasha Bond."
2) Spouses are automatically "qualified" to do a multitude of things that other family/household members are not necessarily able to do. Charge things to each others credit cards, ask for payment receipts and duplicate tax reciepts, request seating changes. Inquire about the status of requests and update the requests -- "James told me he asked for box seats, I don't like being that far back. Put us in the front row. He will be happier there. You have the visa ending in 0077? Charge that card for the upgrade."
3) The types of comments and observations we record about patrons are applicable to both spouses, or not. "Wife loves education. Husband loves opera with a beautiful soprano in the lead role." I might pitch them a sponsorship where a beautiful cast member hosts an education program (so long as I read the comments somewhat in proximity to each other and can make the connection.) On the flip side - "The Bonds are great additions to any table. They can converse in three languages and have homes in a variety of winemaking regions around the world." These comments apply equally to both spouses.
4) A spousal relationship is a legal one. What's Husband's is Wife's and vice versa - this leads to lots of behaviors that operators can/can't, do/don't, and will/won't do. As I think about it, most of our internal processes are set up to ensure that subscriptions are retained by the same couple, and that payment transactions/contributions are correct. For instance, Suzy can't access her account via the web, and delete Jack, then three days later request duplicate receipts for all the donations that "they gave" with only her name on them. Ditto for Jack crossing out Suzy's name and adding someone else's name when he returns the payment for subscription tickets. All sorts of red flags get thrown up.
5) Tax receipts are sent with the name(s) on the account to the address on the account - we let the couple take it from there in terms of "who" gets the tax deduction. If the $$ came from a check with only the wife's name on it, we put it into the account of the couple, and if the wife does her taxes separately and is going to take the deduction, fine, and completely not our business. But husband and wife both get acknowledged for the donation (if they have their program listing set up this way) - they both get invited to everything that they qualify for, etc. We wouldn't start sending invitations to donor events with just the wife's name because the wife charged a contribution to her credit card when there is a long history of the couple's support of the opera.
6) Subscriptions are in both account names. We don't assign the aisle to Husband (N1) and the inner to the wife (N2). This becomes an issue for spouses when there is a divorce (sigh) or if one spouse dies and the surviving spouse wants to give up one seat, in which case they usually keep the aisle. This point about ticket assignments cannot be overlooked or minimized for performing arts orginizations. The spousal relationship supercedes our ability to arbitrarily make a ticket location assignment for multiple seat subscriptions in particular. I could really get into this example, but will stop here for now.
7) Husbands and wives frequently use each others credit cards and we store them on the account. If Husband calls and wants to use wife's credit card - especially if it is a couple that use different surnames - we can see that the credit card is ok, etc. and move ahead with the transaction.
8) Finally, though it seems a little obvious, a person is only the spouse of one other person. That to me makes the relationship both different, and special.
Adding on to Erin’s comments.
#6 – Some organizations attach a “value” to an account to help determine seating preference when seating subscriptions after the sale. It is common in divorce situations for the divorcing couples to both want to retain the value of their total purchase experience as a couple. How this is handled is up to the organization. However, the ability to create a rule to handle it should be accommodated.
#8 – It may seem obvious today – however, my parents never really imagined same sex marriages. Regardless of our own personal preferences we should probably not design a system with a built in constraint that says a marriage is only two people any more than we should build in a constraint that says a marriage must be a male and female. Sure, it could be decades before this is an issue that we’d have to address, but then again…
Just trying to think a bit outside the box. :-)
From: Tessitura Next Generation Forum [mailto:forums-nextgeneration@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Erin Koppel Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 5:06 PM To: Spees, Daniel Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone?
From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com> Sent: 10/19/2009 12:45:43 PM
Absolutely, Dan!! It also makes it better for each organization, as business needs will change over time and that structure would allow us to "reprogram" rules as necessary. I'll throw out there that a common museum practice is to cover all children/grandchildren under age 18 on a membership - but that number is different for each family. Many of us thus keep track of how many kids under 18 are in each family when they sign up, so they can't use the membership to cover the whole neighborhood. We track this as an attribute right now, and have custom code to display that number out to the header. We don't want to take the time to name each child for every one of our 30,000+ member families. However, the Education department does need to collect names, birthdates, etc for children who take classes. So that's another area for flexibility - perhaps a place to somehow just list a number of kids, but also a place to take names on an optional basis and tie them to the membership. Beth * * * * * All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass. Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information. Elizabeth A Varro Membership Manager Science Museum of Minnesota (651) 265-9829 ----- "Dan Spees" <bounce-danielspees8805@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | From: "Dan Spees" <bounce-danielspees8805@tessituranetwork.com> | To: bvarro@smm.org | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 12:20:19 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central | Subject: RE: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone? | |
From: Tessitura Next Generation Forum [mailto:forums-nextgeneration@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Beth Varro | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:35 AM | To: Spees, Daniel | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone?
Great question, Chuck! The particular case you mention actually happens now. It's not perfect, but we do have a system for it. Basically, the "rule" is that the membership can only cover one "family's worth" of kids. If you bought the family membership to cover yourself and YOUR children or grandchildren, you could still list Tom as name 2, and he can help with child care, etc. However, if Tom wanted HIS kids/grandkids to be covered, he would need to buy a separate membership. | | Granted, this all relies heavily on the patron being honest with us, and on our operators catching these details, but I'd say it works 98% of the time. If you called me and asked this question as a prospective or current member, I would advise that you NOT list Tom as name 2 - he'll be covered on his own membership with his grandkids. Basically, we as staff would "fix" the situation so that we don't have a Chuck/Tom constituent and a Tom/grandkids constituent - instead, we would work with you to develop a Chuck/grandkids/other additional guest constituent and a Tom/grandkids constituent. If you visited together, everyone would still be covered correctly, but without Tom being on 2 memberships. Because you're right that everyone would get very confused if that happened. | | That does, however, raise the question of how you handle this case if it becomes more common when adding additional adults becomes an option. In large part, I think discussions of where kids are covered would be something we would need to set business process rules around. We also have quite a few museums and zoos in our area who already offer the "additional adult" option, so I will check with them and see how they handle this. The main problem to avoid that I can see is that people not add an additional adult AND all that adult's children. | | I'll reply back again if I learn anything interesting from my other contacts on this. | | Beth | | * * * * * | All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass. | | Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information. | | Elizabeth A Varro | Membership Manager | Science Museum of Minnesota | (651) 265-9829 | | ----- "Chuck Reif" <bounce-chuckreif3941@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | | From: "Chuck Reif" <bounce-chuckreif3941@tessituranetwork.com> | | To: bvarro@smm.org | | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 11:10:17 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central | | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone? | | | |
From: Beth Varro <bounce-elizabethvarro6946@tessituranetwork.com> | | Sent: 10/19/2009 10:50:42 AM | |
| As the Membership Manager at the Science Museum, I'd like to add some specificity to Ray and Kjersten's thoughts. A few points to consider: | | | | 1) We very intentionally do not define who counts as a "household" for purposes of a membership. The two people may be married, unmarried, divorced but sharing custody, or it may not be a "partner" relationship at all - it may be a mother and son, or two friends. Right now we just list them as name 1 and name 2 and hope for the best, but it would be nice to be able to add specificity to that relationship when we have it. However, adding that specificity would have to be easy to do, as the frontline staff would be the best candidates for that task, and it can't slow them down. | | | | 2) As Kjersten said, we really want to be able to add additional adults to a membership, both to increase our revenue and to meet customer needs. People have nannies and PCAs who bring the kids: they want those care-givers covered. Or maybe it's Grandpa who brings them. Or, as Kjersten said, they may have a live-in grandparent or adult child who they'd like covered. As I see it, the key here is to have both flexibility of relationships (perhaps some designated way to indicate relationships between two people with a system table that we can populate ourselves to meet our needs?), and also to have flexibility in membership functionality - e.g. the membership is somehow tied to each person who is covered by it, and the expiration date, level, and other benefit info displays on the record of each of those individuals. | | | | 3) Another thing to consider in this vein would be name changes. Perhaps it's because a spouse passes away, and then an adult child is listed as name 2. Maybe the patron bought tickets with a significant other, and when they return 2 years later they are no longer with that person. We tend to hit some bumps when we change names, as we then lose the history of that relationship, and maybe even all history that the person who is deleted ever existed. I'm sure our development department would love to have a solid, easy-to-access, automated history of what name was changed when and why; any tracking of history right now depends on whether the operator put good notes in the system. | | | | Beth | | | | * * * * * | | All aboard to experience a legendary journey on the world’s most famous ship. Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition is now open at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Log on to www.smm.org/titanic today to reserve your boarding pass. | | | | Be social! Find the Science Museum on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and more. Log on to www.smm.org/social for more information. | | | | Elizabeth A Varro | | Membership Manager | | Science Museum of Minnesota | | (651) 265-9829 | | | | ----- "Kjersten Schladetzky" <bounce-kjerstenschladetzky7557@tessituranetwork.com> wrote: | | | From: "Kjersten Schladetzky" <bounce-kjerstenschladetzky7557@tessituranetwork.com> | | | To: bvarro@smm.org | | | Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 9:50:15 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central | | | Subject: Re: [Tessitura Next Generation Forum] Relationships, anyone? | | | | | |
From: Ruth Forrester <bounce-ruthforrester6202@tessituranetwork.com> | | | Sent: 10/19/2009 5:37:19 AM | | |
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Thought I had #8 covered with the intentionally gender-neutral wording. My sincere apologies if it didn't come through. You could substitute "partner" in any of the examples, certainly...
Erin