One of our assumptions has been around the idea that a Next Generation constituent needn't necessarily have a postal address. As many of you know this requirement in the current software has caused us to jump through some hoops with web registrations where we actually temporarily create constituents with a dummy address. So the thought was if a large percentage of your constituents only address you electronically, why bother with a required postal address? Furthermore, considering the type of "groups with members" constituent model that we've been talking about, why should a every child in a family need an address when all of the children belong to a family that has a postal address?
So yesterday we got into having a big discussion about whether we needed to carry on the notion of a "primary address" for a constituent. Currently each constituent must have a primary address and that primary address must not be control grouped--everyone can see it.
Primary addresses has some nice advantages--if you want to analyze purchasing by postal code sometimes you just need any easy way to get to a postal code. Plus if you've got several addresses on a constituent and none of them really match the criteria for a particular mailing, you've always got the primary address to fall back on.
Obviously if no postal address is required then you can't force a primary address. You could make a rule like "if there are any addresses, then one of them must be primary". But then we thought, "does this work in a consortium setting"? Let's say the Symphony and the Ballet share a system. Couldn't you make the case that the Symphony might want to store a private address that only the Symphony could see? And that's the only address the constituent has on file? You can't say it's the primary address because the Ballet can't see it.
So several questions:
1. What about this notion of a constituent with no postal address? Does that make sense? Or does the current model feel better? Even with the group/member model we could say that each constituent has to have a primary address, even if that address is not specifically tied to that constituent. That's the example of the child's primary address actually being the family's address.
2. If there were no requirement for a postal address, then there are obviously still times when one is required. We couldn't have a delivery method of "Mail" if the constituent didn't have an address. Of course we could require that an order have a shipping address before allowing that delivery method. But what does this do to subscribers if some percentage of subscribers didn't have postal addresses? Or is this just the way the world is going and we have to learn to operate that way?
3. If we don't require an address, what about a primary flag? Is it ok for a constituent to have say 3 addresses (some shared, some not) and none of them being a primary address? Is it ok for a constituent to have 3 addresses, all only visible for some part of a consortium?
Believe me it's a nice feeling knowing that we can put questions like this in front a large, interested audience. We're eagerly awaiting your help.
Could you allow us to have a primary address by organization? So if I have three members of our consortium, it could be possible to have up to 3 different primary addresses?
Marty
Ok, say you have three organizations each with their own primary address. Then you have a central box office that can see all addresses. So they see three primary addresses. All of sudden, primary doesn't seem primary any more. That's the dilemma that I keep bumping up against.
And that would be the issue we would face since we do have a central box office. We would almost need to treat the central box office as it's own entity. In our case, if our central box sells a ticket to a show, they manage that order. Even though the ticket may be to my performance that I am presenting, I do not have access to the order but I do have the capability to report on the sale.
Therefore it would make since that the box office would need to have their own default addresses. Maybe these addresses can be seen by all or maybe just by the central box office. It's a coin toss for me.
If I had a "Private Address", In our current system, I would set up each organization with a minimum of two control groups. One where all of the seasons get set up that the central box office has access to all of them but the other control group would be for the organization only and this is where I would put the "Private Address" and the central box office and everybody else can not see.
Thanks,
For what it's worth, I think my preference is for the concept that if address is optional, primary address is also optional. So one consortium organization could have a private address that is not shared without having to create a primary and shared address.
I also like the idea that, although a primary address isn't required, a record can only have one primary address, and that address has to be public or shared. I think that this restriction provides some simplicity in selecting a default address for list pulls, ticket mailings, etc. without requiring users to enter a bunch of complex rules about which primary address to use under which circumstances.
From: Marty Jones <bounce-martyjones7649@tessituranetwork.com>Sent: 2/24/2010 3:35:19 PM