CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

*

News:

Have a question about CiviCRM?
Get it answered quickly at the new
CiviCRM Stack Exchange Q+A site
This forum was archived on 25 November 2017. Learn more.
How to get involved.
What to do if you think you've found a bug.



  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
  • Old sections (read-only, deprecated) »
  • Support »
  • Using CiviCRM »
  • Using CiviMember (Moderator: Deepak Srivastava) »
  • Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie  (Read 1710 times)

davidunwinubs13

  • I post occasionally
  • **
  • Posts: 41
  • Karma: 1
    • Marylebone Association
  • CiviCRM version: 3.3.6
  • CMS version: Drupal 6
  • MySQL version: 5
  • PHP version: 5
Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 10, 2009, 05:31:09 am
Hi,
I hope someone can clear up my confusion ???
I am a volunteer for a non profit org.
I have only set up one organization (the name of our non-profit org)
We have three basic types of members we want to have in CRM


*  Individual - Easy to Understand - 1 member, 1 membership fee - Select New Individual - enter details, enter membership

*  Family - Not too hard to understand - two or more members, 1 membership fee - Select New Household, enter details of head of household and then family members, enter memberships

*  Business - This is where I get confused? - two or more members, 1 membership fee - . How do I set up Head of Business and then enter employees of businesses. (there is no option to create a new type such as "Business" in addition to Individuals and Households, so that I can say "select New Business".

Do Business members have to be created as organizations or do I select New Household and then enter name of business as Household Name????

Can anyone enlighten me on the use of "Organization" field??

Kind regards

David

ctarascio

  • I post frequently
  • ***
  • Posts: 334
  • Karma: 30
    • American Friends Service Committee
  • CiviCRM version: 4.1.3
  • CMS version: Drupal 6.26
  • MySQL version: 5.5.20
  • PHP version: 5.3.13
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 10, 2009, 06:18:03 am
Hi David,
Here is one approach:
Create the Business as an organization
Add the Head of the Business and the employees as individuals
Create the relationships that you need between the individuals and the Organization (Business)

This may not be the best approach so perhaps someone else will add their thoughts.

Cynthia

CiviTeacher.com

  • I live on this forum
  • *****
  • Posts: 1282
  • Karma: 118
    • CiviTeacher
  • CiviCRM version: 3.4 - 4.5
  • CMS version: Drupal 6&7, Wordpress
  • MySQL version: 5.1 - 5.5
  • PHP version: 5.2 - 5.4
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 10, 2009, 12:10:10 pm
Cynthia is correct, you can create an Organization (which you call a business) and this Organization can have an "Employee of..." relationship with 1 or more individuals.

Try CiviTeacher: the online video tutorial CiviCRM learning library.

davidunwinubs13

  • I post occasionally
  • **
  • Posts: 41
  • Karma: 1
    • Marylebone Association
  • CiviCRM version: 3.3.6
  • CMS version: Drupal 6
  • MySQL version: 5
  • PHP version: 5
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 13, 2009, 09:10:01 am
This seems a bit confusing to me ???
I thought that "Organization" related to the organization or entity who was accepting members into it and you would only have multiple organizations if you had say separate or multiple divisions within the entity, say North, South East and West chapters.
What you are saying is that company members joining also can sit under "Organization" so we will have our organization mixed in with member organizations.
I suppose I am now confused as to what the Organization field should be used for?


David

CiviTeacher.com

  • I live on this forum
  • *****
  • Posts: 1282
  • Karma: 118
    • CiviTeacher
  • CiviCRM version: 3.4 - 4.5
  • CMS version: Drupal 6&7, Wordpress
  • MySQL version: 5.1 - 5.5
  • PHP version: 5.2 - 5.4
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 13, 2009, 09:48:45 am
It is a little confusing.

An organization in the database serves 2 purposes.

1) An organization is something that others can join as a member, for instance the organization could be "My Organization South Chapter"
2) An organization is something that can join another organization as a member.
    For instance "ABC Member Organization" could join "My Organization South Chapter"
3) An organization is something than can have "individual" (aka people) members associated with it as "employees of..." which is called a "relationship"

Does this help?

So yes, you will have to make your OWN organization an organization in your database for people to join it.
Try CiviTeacher: the online video tutorial CiviCRM learning library.

ctarascio

  • I post frequently
  • ***
  • Posts: 334
  • Karma: 30
    • American Friends Service Committee
  • CiviCRM version: 4.1.3
  • CMS version: Drupal 6.26
  • MySQL version: 5.5.20
  • PHP version: 5.3.13
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 13, 2009, 09:51:59 am
hello,
i think that what is confusing you is that you are thinking about what it means to be called an organization in the traditional sense of the (non-profit) word.

One might argue that a Business is not an organization, especially in the non-profit sense of the word, but since CiviCRM does not supply business as one of the 3 record types (individual, household, organization), the most logical choice of the 3 available is the Organization.

If you expand the way in which you think of an Organization, I think you will find that you have what you need.

Perhaps this bit of documentation will be more helpful: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Creating+New+Contacts.

Cynthia

davidunwinubs13

  • I post occasionally
  • **
  • Posts: 41
  • Karma: 1
    • Marylebone Association
  • CiviCRM version: 3.3.6
  • CMS version: Drupal 6
  • MySQL version: 5
  • PHP version: 5
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 14, 2009, 01:10:22 am
Thanks to everyone who helped me with bthis confusion, I think I might just have got it now :-[
I think I need to go away and RTFM a little bit more!

Dave Greenberg

  • Administrator
  • I’m (like) Lobo ;)
  • *****
  • Posts: 5760
  • Karma: 226
    • My CiviCRM Blog
Re: Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie
July 14, 2009, 08:15:03 am
I didn't see the link in this thread - so just in case you haven't discovered the new online CiviCRM book:
http://en.flossmanuals.net/CiviCRM
Protect your investment in CiviCRM by  becoming a Member!
Pages: [1]
  • CiviCRM Community Forums (archive) »
  • Old sections (read-only, deprecated) »
  • Support »
  • Using CiviCRM »
  • Using CiviMember (Moderator: Deepak Srivastava) »
  • Confused about use of Organization field - Please help a newbie

This forum was archived on 2017-11-26.