Author Topic: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization. (Read 591 times)

chaseweb · October 25, 2012, 12:39:21 pm

Hi all,

As I learn - I just want to get the best/recommended approach to this.

I have an Organization (Woman's Club) - which has several Committees/Groups/Sub-Groups. I have mapped these out as static groups, etc. (no problem)
But now I want to be able to specify positions for each group.

Chair, Co-Chair, etc.

My ultimate goal is to set it up such that I can setup smart groups - where people on the frontend can easily get list of contacts for each group, maybe all chairs, or chair for given group, etc.

So I have read about relationships being used for this, but when I click on - Add Relationship - I only see ability to build relationships for Individual/Househould/Organization.

If this is indeed the best approach - then how do I say that Individual X is Chair of Group Y

Thanks
Corey

Dave Greenberg · October 25, 2012, 01:22:14 pm

I think one way folks have done this is to create Organization contact records for each committee. Then you can create appropriate relationship types to link people to the committee:

Committee member
Committee chair

Might be other techniques - but this is one I've heard of.

chaseweb · October 26, 2012, 04:28:23 am

So if I understand correctly.

I still will keep my groups for each committee in the main organization
Then I will create - organization records for the committees as well (just for the purpose of relationship)

Thanks

Dave Greenberg · October 29, 2012, 12:02:05 pm

Or ... I think you can replace those 'static' groups with smart groups, built using Advanced Search e.g.

Committee A Smart Group = all contacts with relationship of "committee member" to organization contact "Committee A". (Try this before removing our static groups - but if it works as I think it will - it's nicer because all 'relationship changes' are immediately reflected in the smart group (which is a saved query).

xavier · October 29, 2012, 12:05:30 pm

Hi,

You should create a new contact type subtype of organisation) for that,
What we have done as well on some projects is to rename household, that we don't use into committee. Was probably before sub types did exist.

X+

Dave Greenberg · October 29, 2012, 02:43:49 pm

Very true - subtype is the way to go - thx Xavier!

chaseweb · October 29, 2012, 05:57:25 pm

Dave & Xavier,

Thanks for the inputs on this. I just want to summarize it (if you can confirm this that would be great)

1. Create sub-types (of organization) that represent committee
2. Create relationships for all members for the committees they are in (i.e. member, chair, co-chair, etc.)
3. Then build out smart-groups for each committee using Advanced Search

Now a quick question for you - from an administrative stand point.

This is a club of old ladies and everyone won't update there information online, so there is a person that will manually do it in the system based on a piece paper they fill out (these ladies are over 65 so I know it's crazy).

Any way - using static groups - the person could go to each contact record and just checkbox each group this person is part of - so from that point it's easy. Also from the dashboard perspective, I don't think smart groups show up in the dashboard only static groups. So if a member wants to see all the groups they are part of and all hte positions they hold - I had exposed the dashboard in the frontend to show this.

So I would like your inputs if it's not too much on these two points
1. Administrative point
2. Dashboard showing groups you are part of.

Thanks again for your inputs.
Corey

xavier · October 29, 2012, 11:43:41 pm

Quote

This is a club of old ladies and everyone won't update there information online, so there is a person that will manually do it in the system based on a piece paper they fill out (these ladies are over 65 so I know it's crazy).

That's not always old ladies that aren't very good at filling things, the problem you have is unfortunately all too common.

Having normal groups is less "magic inside" and might be easier indeed. So on adv search you'd add them to a static group instead of creating a smart one.

Something that might be proven handy is to be able to register more persons too, eg. a relative or neighbour that checks email more regularly than the member herself. We do that a lot with committee, to put assistants or the generic email of the team instead of the email of the person.

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Author Topic: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization. (Read 591 times)

chaseweb

Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

Dave Greenberg

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

chaseweb

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

Dave Greenberg

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

xavier

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

Dave Greenberg

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

chaseweb

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.

xavier

Re: Best way to handle positions of groups within organization.