Author Topic: Understanding how 'organization' works (Read 1140 times)

sctajc · November 07, 2009, 01:27:28 pm

I am very new to CiviCRM and what a great package. One area I am not understanding and have not seen spelt-out is the relationship between setting up your domain details in 'Configuration Checklist/Domain Information', Organization (as in Individual, Household, organization), membership type and 'Memberships' tag and adding a 'New Member'. If I have missed the documentation please direct me to it. We do not require any sub-organizations.

I set-up domain information - All is ok
Need to set up a membership type but before I can do this I need an Organization to assign too. I set one up an organization (but this seems to be a largely a duplication of domain information) then set up membership type.
If I now go to 'Memberships' tag then 'New Member' I need to select 'Membership Organization' (where there is only one in our case) before selecting 'Membership Type'. If we have only one 'organization' why do we have to have this option available?
If I now go to the 'Contacts/New Individual', I can enter the relevant details but nowhere here does it ask me for 'Membership Organization'. I know this is what I am wanting, but it seems inconsistent to me and if 'Membership Organization' is needed in one place why is it not needed in both?

Hope this is understandable!

Just realised that when entering a 'New Contact' you don't actually enter membership type. Does this mean that when you enter a new member you need to go to two places? First to 'New Contact' then 'Relationships' to enter membership type?

Dave Greenberg · November 07, 2009, 06:17:44 pm

Domain info is indeed for the organization which "owns" the site.

The "Membership" concept in CiviCRM is specific to organizations who have a more formal concept of memberships (usually paid and with a periodicity to them) - e.g. I'm a member of the SF Bicycle Coalition - I have an annual membership which I have to renew each year. This functionality is only used by some CiviCRM sites. AND of those sites, quite a few have heirarchical membership structures - National, State, Local.

If you're not interested in tracking membership status and having folks sign up for time-delimited memberships then you don't need to set up either an Org record for your Organization, nor the membership types. If you are going to use Memberships, then you do need an organization record as well - and you'll use Memberships to track these by membership type (not Relationships).

Memberships are one of many transactional records that can be attached to "contacts" (individual, organizations or households in your DB). Others are Contributions, Event (participant) records, Activities, etc.

You can input a new contact PLUS a membership for them from the "New Membership" screen. OR do it in two steps as you've described.

If you haven't browsed through the online Understanding CiviCRM book - that might help pull these concepts together better.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm

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Author Topic: Understanding how 'organization' works (Read 1140 times)

sctajc

Understanding how 'organization' works

Dave Greenberg

Re: Understanding how 'organization' works