[dyednwool]

Hi all -

Hoping some can fully clarify the issues with phone sharing. From prior postings, it seems like most of you are NOT using phone sharing (and I can see why).

So here are my questions:

• In Config in the Phone Types table, for each phone type you would need to check the Do Not Share this Phone type box in order to turn the sharing off.
• If you don't set that in Config, then it seems like phone numbers would always have the ability to be changed to Shared/Not Shared/Do Not Share. (And I still don' tunderstand the difference between Not Shared and Do Not Share). This opens up the possibility of phone numbers getting screwed up by people who don't fully understand what they're doing. So I don't really want to go there.
• If you do change all the phone types in Config to Do Not Share, then all the phones will now show in records as Cannot be Shared. So now, when you create a new record and create a spouse relationship (for example), none of the phone information will be visible on the relationship. If you want a phone number on the relationship, you then have to create it, and copy and paste the phone info into that field. Nice and secure, but a pain.

I would like to consider Melissa's suggestion of creating two business phone types: Business Phone-MAIN and Business Phone-DIRECT. Then you could probably share the MAIN business phone on employee/contact records and you'd have anothe rphone type to put their individula direct line under. This is the ONLY phone number I'm considering using Sharing for.

So can anyone PLEASE help clarify my thinking through this one -- we need to do our conversion soon and no one else in our organization is available to help me think through this one.

Thanks!!

[Matthew]

1. yes, you have to check Do Not Share from within config--tables to disable the feature for Each phone type.
2. the difference between Do Not Share and Not Shared: Not Shared means it can be shared but isn't. Do Not Share means it should not be shared. It's murky..and ultimately up to each org to decide how to distinguish between the two. I do know, however, that you have to change the field to Do Not Share before making any changes to a shared number or deleting it from a record, or if it will follow through on all records that share that number.
3. yes, you're correct on all points.

at organizations that do not have direct lines for each phone, I have used Extension as a phone type with no auto-formatting. This was necessary because people kept adding and replacing extensions to the main phone number.

[Melissa Siobhan]

I use "do not share" on all my email types, cell phone, business - direct and the like. It has made things easier. I do keep home phone as shareable so it works on spouse records but they do not get their email or cell phone shared. if they share an email or cell phone I have to manually add it to both but that is rare so it is not a problem.

You just need to remember when creating a constituent which may have it's address shared (like all org records) when you add phones and leave them as "not shared" - all new relationships or any record you share that address with will get that phone number and it will change automatically to "shared". Thinking ahead is important.

Once it has been shared - changing it to "do not share "will not remove it from the records it is linked to - it simply breaks the link and they are each free-standing phone numbers. I do wish it would give you the option of removing it from all but alas, no.