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Spouse Preference in Mail Merge

Joshua Friedeman

March 13, 2018 15:01

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When I have included spouses in a mailing list, there seems to be a preference for the added spouse. I have two particular issues in which this is the case. For instance, if alumni John Doe and his wife Jane Doe are merged:

1) The email or mailing address is drawn from Jane Doe's page (assuming there is a difference). 

2) The digital copy of a letter is added to Jane Doe's activity feed rather than John Doe's feed.

Is there a way to establish a preference for John Doe so that all alumni mailings are posted on the alumni's page? (Or, similarly, so all thank you notes are posted on the particular donor's page)

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5 comments

• 0
  
  Adam Sentz March 13, 2018 17:16

  @Joshua - If you open a support request with some details we can take a look and make sure everything is working correctly.

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  Ashley Allen May 22, 2024 15:53

  Is there a reason why the programing is set to select the spouse alphabetically over having a choice of having the husband be the default contact (head of the household)?

  Also, why is the merged spouse name Mr. John Doe and Mrs. Jane Doe (Husband'sPrefix FirstName LastName and WIfe'sPrefix FirstName LastName) instead of Mr. and Mrs. John Doe (Husband'sPrefix and WIfe'sPrefix HusbandFirstName HusbandLastName)?

  With the current setup, merging the spouses appears to be a useless option since you would have to manually switch the household contact information on a spreadsheet for it to be useful.

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  Adam Sentz May 22, 2024 18:16

  Ashley Allen - I opened a Support Request for you so we can check it out, but I'm wondering if maybe you don't have gender set on someone so Populi doesn't know husband/wife just spouse/spouse. Might be worth checking.

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  Ashley Allen May 22, 2024 18:50

  We do use the gender field. I tested this with a staff member and his wife. I just added a few other staff and it did fix the merged spouse name. The original staff I tested, his wife has a hyphenated last name, so it formatted like the example I listed above like Mr. John Doe and Mrs. Jane Smith-Doe.

  The other two staff and their spouses did format as Mr. and Mrs. John Doe, but the info listed is based alphabetically. Both men have a name that starts with an M, but the wife who name starts with an A has her info displayed for their merged account. For the wife that's name starts with an S, the husband's info is displayed.

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  Adam Sentz May 22, 2024 18:53

  Ashley Allen - OK, thanks. If they have different last names then I wouldn't expect them to merge. The other issue sounds like maybe a not-smart-enough sort is going on. We'll follow up on that in the support request I opened.