CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

in the current version, organization type records do not have access to the postal or email greeting fields (communication preferences panel). they are simply unset for org records on the edit view, and various rules added to prevent interaction with those fields when working with org records.

i understand the thinking behind this -- we don't typically think of "greeting" an organization -- we "greet" people, and thus indiv and household records have those fields.

however, I question the merit of disabling those fields, and think it unnecessary. organizations frequently interact with businesses or other orgs in their db as an entity, and may or may not have individuals they are have established relationships with -- in which case they would mail to and greet the organization in a more generic way. for example, they might mail the organization and greet with "Friends at ACME Org" -- a greeting formula that could easily be created through the system.

It's certainly possible and likely that organization records will be mailed to -- and thus may need to be greeted. And orgs can have email addresses attached to them, which begs the question -- why can we email orgs but not create email greetings for them.

Further, with the ability to create contact subtypes, the traditional definition of an organization entity may no longer stand -- as there could be quite a few creative directions taken. the absence of postal/email greetings limits this flexibility.

in general, i think it's good practice to ask whether a contact type's nature is such that certain fields are not applicable. but in this case, I think that thinking is too restrictive. I'd like to recommend the postal/email greeting be restored for org contact types.