We have a question regarding the use of Associations in v11;
The hypotheses has been put forth that the new Affiliations mechanism is sufficiently flexible as to be able to encapsulate the relational functionality of Associations, that the implementation of Associations in v11 is primarily to support backward compatibility and that the strategic approach of phasing out the use of Associations entirely may be the best approach.
What do you think of this hypothesis?
My understanding was that associations describe the relationship between like constituent types- individuals to individuals, orgs to orgs; whereas affiliations describe the relationship of an individual to an organization or household.
So I might be a house member of the Me and My Spouse Household, and thereby affiliated to it as a household member, but I still would need a Spouse association to my spouse, since our both being adult members of the same household does not imply spousehood. So, associations aren't really being phased out. They're just being restricted to describe one kind of relationship, while affiliations describe a different sort of relationship.
If you're currently only using associations to indicate the relationship of individual to org, then your hypothesis would translate to that business practice, but not if individual relationships to other individuals are being tracked.
Yes, that is how it is described in the documentation. From a data design perspective, Associations appear to be a one-to-one relationship and Affiliations appear to be a one-to-many relationship.
Whether or not the related entities are of like or dissimilar types is only relevant as convention and nomenclature.
Our thinking is that because a one-to-many relationship is much more flexible and extensible, that we might want to use Affiliations for all entity relationships.
I'll take the middle road and say that both descriptions are accurate. In terms of a description of the data structure, Affiliations are one to many and Associations are one to one as Mark says. But as Amanda points out, the current rules ONLY allow you to use Associations when linking Individuals to Individuals or Groups (households or organizations) to Groups. And you can ONLY use Affiliations when linking Individuals to Groups.
It's possible that we may reevaluate that restriction in the future, but that's the way that v11 works.
Ah, that make sense, it's not just a data thing but also how the UI enables the functionality.
Thanks Chuck.