[vsiegel]

We don't inactivate records, ever. If they're deceased, mark them deceased. If they're no mail ever ever ever, we mark them as No Mail of Any Kind (and sometimes use a popup note).

The only good use of "inactive" that I can think of is Drew's: records which have been merged but the original not yet deleted. We don't inactivate businesses that have gone under because we often get individual donors who may have had a connection to that business that come back to us. It's not unheard of for someone to say, "I used to work for AEIOU Corp. before it went bankrupt, I gave at their holiday party, and I'm so glad to have reconnected with you."

I kind of wish we had the option to disable the "inactive" button. It seems contrary to best practices to inactivate a donor, for all of the reasons above and more.

[Melissa Siobhan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vsiegel

We don't inactivate businesses that have gone under because we often get individual donors who may have had a connection to that business that come back to us. It's not unheard of for someone to say, "I used to work for AEIOU Corp. before it went bankrupt, I gave at their holiday party, and I'm so glad to have reconnected with you."

Just because you have marked a company inactive does not invalidate the relationships that exist on that record or that you can not add new rlationships if past employees surface. I inactivate businesses and I can still tell that someone used to work for that company when it was in existance.

Inactive is a very good way to be sure that that record never gets any communication (mail, call, email, etc.) from you ever. I use attributes for specific requests of no mail, no calls, etc. but for no "anything" - inactive works best for me.

[dyednwool]

I agree that inactive is appropriate for exactly that -- inactive
records, however you want to define that for your organization. We are
planning to use it for businesses that are no longer active, for us that
means they are completely out of business.

Has anyone ever had any issues with the Inactive marking interfering
with data coming out on reports?

[Joe_Meehan]

Inactive is a tricky thing. I only use it with a business rule pop-up, and it basically means that this person is to remain our database, but is persona non grata (usually a security risk at events).

I'm not a fan of those check boxes on Bio 1 - because there's no "documentation" to back up WHY it's checked. Request No emails is simple - but we have an attribute that says they sent an 'opt out' request; I don't use "No Valid Address" - rather we stick with a "NO MAIL REASON" attribute (Requested no more mail, returned mail - no forwarding address, no invitation, no appeals).

It's hard to explain to staff members who don't work in RE 24/7 why there's an address in the preferred address box, and yet there is a check box saying "no valid address" - and no idea why it's not a valid address.

And yes, those with the tribute module can appreciate the safeguard of the 'deceased' checkbox preventing mail being sent to someone by accident.

Regards,
Joe Meehan

[dyednwool]

As a rule, we have either an attribute or Notepad type that corresponds
to each checkbox on Bio 1/Org 1 and everyone's required to to put in
further detail as to the reason for the check.

Because RE gives you convenient functionality in their output modules
(query/report/export/mail) that uses these checkboxes, that's why I like
them but I agree that they need to be qualified.

It would be better if RE paired up the checkbox with a convenient place
to put a note (same for the Solicit Code field). Wherever they try to
simplify, we seem to always need to add more information/explanation.
So if they could pair up the two that would be better.

[Karenw]

There are only two reasons people go inactive in my database:

1. They participated in one of our walk/runs and have no other connection to our organization. Most of the time, these people didn't even realize they were participating in a walk/run that benefitted charity. We solicited them for two years after each annual event, and if they didn't respond, we inactivated them.

2. They threatened to sue me personally if they ever received any mail from us ever again. Ok, that's only one person. But I'd rather not have that conversation ever again, so I marked him inactive and put a note on his record.

Other than that, we make heavy use of solicit codes and the checkboxes on Bio1. And whenever that occurs, a note is added to the record to say why they have that solicit code/box checked, except deceased, which we consider pretty self-explanatory.