Committees as Org sub-type or Households?

[goerlitzer36]

Dear Community,

Question: Since we have absolutely no use for Households, would it be smart to repurpose Households as Committees, instead of using Organization sub-types?

I am testing CiviCRM now. From what I have read so far, best practice is to set up my Committees as additional Contact Types based on Organization. So under Contacts > New Organization one could choose New Working Group, New Committee, New Sub-committee. Individuals can have Relationships to the Committee "Org" record showing start and end dates. Perfect!

However, to me it is a little confusing to have our internal Committees treated like external Organizations. It seems preferable to have a separate entity. Is there a downside to reusing Households? I see that I can also add Relationships to them.

Thanks for your advice!

[davem]

I don't see that Households works well for committees at all - a committee typically is not a group of individuals living at the same address and you may find that assumptions that have been made for households don't hold true for your committees. I'd see this as more weird than using organisations. Relationships to org sub-types is very natural and just because it's created as an organisation, doesn't mean it's external...

Another option is simply to use groups. You also get start and end dates, they can be hierarchical (for subcommittees) and you'll need groups at some point for doing mailouts to the committee members.

Dave

[goerlitzer36]

Thanks for your reply! Groups would seem a good fit for Committees. The hierarchical feature would be very helpful.

After all, a  Group is what a Committee is. "Groups should be used for grouping people within an entity that needs to be treated like a cohesive unit (to send mailings to, for example)" in contrast to Organizations "for example companies or other non-profit organisations"

How can I reflect the role of the person within the Group, e.g. Chair of a Committee? Would a custom field be needed? Administer > Customize Data and Screens > Custom fields?  Also, I do not see the option to add start and end dates when I add a contact to a group? (Only date added, supplied automatically.) In short, I would need Relationship-type information added to someone's Group participation. So that leads back to using Org sub-types, which can have Relationships.

I am trying to put myself in the shoes of a new hire or volunteer or intern. It would have to be explained to each new person that "Committees are treated like Organizations in the system" instead of just being able to say, "here are the Committees." I know this doesn't sound like a big deal, but usability-wise my mantra is  "Don't Make Me Think."

[xavier]

Hi,

Tried every ways to skin that committee cat in various projects (including using civimember).

As you have noticed, if you have various levels of "memberships" of the group, relationship works better than groups. You might still need groups at the end for mailing (eg send an email to all the chairperson+members but not substitutes) a committee.

I don't recall the details, but I couldn't completely remove all the "household" references in some screens (as one of the 3 main types, quite hardcoded).

I would suggest you to create committees as sub organisations, but modify the navigation menu to move up the relevant menu entries as top level right under Contacts, this way, you make it easy for your users while being arguably more "semantically correct"

X+