Donor Manager Software

Is it possible to add a feature where we can archive partners with whom we currently have little contact, but we would still like to keep their information on file?

I have people on my list that I may or may not ever contact again. I would like to keep their information somehow because 'you never know', but I don't want their names cluttering my Partners list.

Well, the program currently doesn't do that, but I kind of like that idea. I can see where that would be really useful myself.

Let me put that on my "stuff to think about" list and see where it ends up.

I'll second this request. When we started out we had a bunch of people identified as potential supporters but now a couple of years later they haven't shown interest and it would be great to be able to back up their data and delete them from the primary list.

What term would you suggest for these?

Actually, I was thinking I should extend this to have (as a beginning) the following categories:

active
inactive
deceased

Of course, you could also use the "partner type" to indicate "Formerly interested" or "dormant." But, that would not remove them from the lists, reports, etc.

I'm still thinking on this one the best way to approach this, but I certainly agree it would be a nice addition, and makes perfect sense.

jmuehleisen wrote:What term would you suggest for these?

Not sure... so far I'm using a custom partner type called 'Former Contact' so I can filter them out of searches, but yeah, they still show up on the main list. 'Active/inactive' would probably work ('deceased' could be covered by 'inactive'.

Or 'active/archived' might work too.

We trust your judgment.

I've been using the term "REMOVEDRECORD" as a partner type. I'm planning to delete them after my next backup. If I need them in the future, I'll restore the backup. (I'm actually using Pack-and-Go files for my backup.)

The main idea I think is that these records don't show up unless you really want to see them, regardless of whatever you call it. Could you ad a filter to the partner list that "hid" partners that are marked "inactive/Former/etc." in the PartnerType field? (In SQL Server, you could probably accomplish this with a "View" of the Partners table. I have no idea how Foxpro does it.) In the "Options," we'd need a way to "Show/Hide Inactive Partners." I think this would be not unlike how DM works already when you filter the partner list (e.g., "Churches Only").

Ok, one last possibility before dinner. If DM were able to open partner records from multiple data sources, then we could "switch" from a "current partners" database to a "former partners" database. Bigger, nastier, but another possibility.

I'm thinking about making this another user definable thing.

You can give a name to the type, and say "Yes / No" consider this type to be "Active."

So, three categories that come to mind to me are:

Active Yes, show on main list
Inactive Hide on main list
Deceased Hide on main list

If I make it totally user definable, then people can set it up however they want.

So, 2 years on... any update?

Yep. This feature is in DM 6, which I'm hoping to release the first beta of in the next week or so.

The first beta will be too unstable to use for "live" data, but it will give folks a chance to take a look at where things are going and to make suggestions on new and revised features.