Primary Addresses

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,

Marty

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.

Musing here....

I tend to agree with Marty here, that it's too much to ask for a centralized box office to deal with multiple primary addresses.  In addition, their mailing process would have to have some way of prioritizing "which primary is primary" on a record.

My thought on this is that the primary flag is really only visible to an organization.  Since a user group has only one organization defined (in the current paradigm with TR_ORGANIZATION), would it be better if only the current organization's designation of primary was seen?  A three organization consortium could, for example, have a constituent with three separate addresses, all visible, but each would have their own primary flag on a different address.  Or, each organization could flag the same address.  The primary flag visibility is determined by which organization you represent in your user group.

If an organization wishes the control group an address and mark it primary, this concept I believe would hold true except in circumstances where usergroups within an organization could not view an address according to control group security.  To illustrate:

Consortium: Opera, Symphony; control group of "Opera Development" is only visible to Opera Development users

Constituent Mr Smith has one address, marked as "Opera Development" type, secured by Opera Development control group, and marked primary.

Symphony View:  Mr Smith has no addresses on record.

Opera Development View:  Mr Smith has one address on record marked primary and of type "Opera Development".

Opera Ticketing View:  Mr Smith has no address on record.

The last "view" here is a problem, as theoretically, any mailing done by the Opera should pick up the primary address on Mr Smith's account.  If an Opera Ticketing user is running the mailing process, this address is not visible.

Furthermore, what happens if the Opera Ticketing user adds a new address and marks the address as primary (to Opera). What then happens to the Opera Development address still marked primary, but not visible to the ticketing user?

Couple of options:

1. Automatically move the primary flag for the Opera from the Opera Development address to the new address.  (probably not the best answer!)

2. Require that addresses marked as primary be visible to every user in at least the organization. 

a. Does this override the control group? Defeats the rules for control groups...

b. Does this create a "sync'd" copy? Unnecessary overhead, duplication.

c.  Does it force a control group change to a control group that ensures visibility to the entire Opera organization?  Intriguing in my opinion, but not feasible to do it "automagically".

What if we stepped back and at the time of address creation allowed a control grouped address type, but required that the assigned control group would keep the address visible to users in a single organization?  So, in the example above, the Opera Development user when creating Mr Smith's address could create a new address, but could only assign a type of "Opera", instead of "Opera Development", as Opera Development would imply that Opera users outside of opera development couldn't see their primary address.

My thoughts, anyway!

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.

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.