Understanding & Managing Relationships

Understanding Relationships

Your DMS allows you to configure relationships between Contacts, such as “Employee of Company X” or “Household member of Household Y”. Relationships can be set as follows:

• Individual to Individual
• Individual to Organization
• Individual to Household

These, while entirely optional, can be beneficial in ensuring better reporting, more efficient and cost-effective communication (e.g.: not mailing three appeals to the same address!) and more nuanced Contact segmentation.

Adding a Relationship to a Contact

1. On the Contacts Tab, search for the desired Contact and select their name to be brought to their Contact Profile

Find your Contact

2. Select either the (1a) Relationships subtab and then on(1b) Add Relationship ; or the (2a)Actions menu in the top-right and then on (2b) Add Relationship

Under your desired Contact's Profile, select Actions > Add Relationship

3. In the popup window that will appear, fill out the relevant details and Save Relationship when ready:

•  Relationship Type: the type of relationship your Contact is associated with (e.g.: “Child of”, “Sibling of”, “Employee of”, etc.)
• Contact(s): the Contact in your DMS this Contact is related to
  • If Individual Contact: type either only “Last name”, only “First name”, or for a full name type “Last name, First name”
  • If Organization Contact: type the full or partial name of the Organization
  • If Household Contact: type the full or partial name of the Household.
• Start Date/End Date (e.g.: “Employee of”):  aids in keeping a record of present/past Relationships
  • Setting an End Date in the past will switch the Relationship to the Inactive Relationships panel.
  • Likewise, an End Date that has been passed will change the Relationship to Inactive.
• Description/Note: provides additional information to the Contact’s Relationship 
  • These are not searchable fields and should not be used as a tracking tool

Fill out the necessary fields to add the Relationship

Managing an Existing Relationship

Once a Relationship has been established between one or more Contacts, it can be viewed, modified or deleted from the Contact’s Profile Page.

Editing a Relationship

1. In a Contact's profile, under the Relationships tab, navigate to the specific Relationship you want to edit and select Edit

You can Edit each individual Relationship related to the Contact

2. In the Edit Relationship for (…) popup window, make the necessary changes to this Contact's Relationship and select Save Relationship:

Modify all the necessary information

Disabling or Deleting a Relationship

1. In a Contact's profile, under the Relationships tab, navigate to the specific Relationship you want to disable or delete

Relationships subtab

2. Next to the specific Relationship you want to disable/delete and select More

Select the 3 dot menu

3. Then select either Disable or Delete and confirm your action in the accompanying pop-up window.

Select Disable or Delete

4.  Once confirmed, the Relationship will then be displayed under the Inactive Relationships panel.

• Note: While you can enable a disabled Relationship at any time by selecting More once again and then Enable, you cannot retrieve a deleted Relationship.

Inactive Relationships

Adding a New Relationship Type

You're also able to create custom Relationship Types in your DMS to further segment your Contact’s Relationships.

1. On the Contacts Tab, search for the desired Contact and select their name to be brought to their Contact Profile

Find your Contact

2. Select either the (1a) Relationships subtab and then on(1b) Add Relationship ; or the (2a)Actions menu in the top-right and then on (2b) Add Relationship

Under your desired Contact's Profile, select Actions > Add Relationship

3. In the Add Relationship for (…) popup, select the “wrench icon” to the right of Relationship Type

Add new Relationship type

4. A new popup window will provide suggested Relationship Types, along with the ability to Edit or Delete each of them.

Suggested Relationship Types

5. Otherwise, to add an entirely new Relationship Type, select the Add Relationship Type button at the bottom right corner of the screen.

Create new Relationship type

6. Fill out the details of your new Relationship type and select Save.

Add details for your new Relationship type