At the moment we use attributes with a Yes/No description instead of the Contact Types field, to cope with multiple contact types on the same relationship record, and then use address processing to include only contacts with certain attributes. It would be much easier if we could just assign them more than one contact type, with from and to dates on each.

This functionality currently exists but it is ridiculously tied to the relartionship address attribute. This requires so much maintaniance and is so buried that it is impossible to do. Every time you change a relationship address you have to remember to check these attributes and users have such a hard time remembering where they are. Why can't relationship attributes be used to code these mailing preferences?

Especially at the Higher Education level where a single contact may be engaged by three or four units.

Currently, there is no workable "two-pass" contact processing function in RE. ("Two pass" = "one kind of contact otherwise some selected default.") In theory it's available via address attributes--but no practical coding scheme seems to fit. A hierarchy of Contact Types for each contact makes great sense to me.

I think this is more of a use issue than a functionality issue. If you mark a relationship as "primary" contact that will be the person you contact for nearly every purpose. If you need to contact someone else for your golf outing-then you code that person. I've been managing this for 15 years and it has always worked without multiple contacts for the same person.
Good Luck!

I completely disagree, Erin. Primary works for the main person - but what about the other person who is the grants contact and the events contact but not the media contact. Erin - you are lucky this has never been an issue for you but it is an issue for many (hence 93+ votes).

So many people wear different 'hats' when interacting with us, that this would save us a world of pain.

Totally agree. In our case one person can be a Family Member (registered with us), Emergency Contact, Referee, Coach in relation to one of our Athletes. At the moment we have to create multiple relationships.

COMPLETELY agree. Honestly, this has been one of the biggest thorns in my side for the 11+ years that I've worked with RE. A very recent example: We just send holiday cards to our top constituents. Wells Fargo has 3-4 different contacts. People we go to for various reasons... the middle management person who gets the solicitation and gift acknowledgement, the highest executive level person who gets invites to special events, the grants manager who manages charitable giving, the wealth manager who manages corporate giving, the person we go to for the Swan House Ball, the person we go to for Annual Gifts (money comes from different pots at the company). We have very different contact with each of these people. Like Melissa said, we have to manage these under address attributes, which are buried and hard to manage/remember.

This enhancement would be a GREAT improvement for us. It is VERY CONFUSING when you see an employee listed multiple times in the relationship field because the contact type can only be 1-1. ARHG!!!!!!!

I'm a fan....I am currently conducting a contact clean-up project and am trying to wrap my head around the complexity of my organization's needs. We host around a dozen events a year for various initiatives, and the areas of interest for differ from one contact to another, but often a contact for one initiative will be the contact for another and I am trying to determine the best method to handle this.

It would also be helpful when a gift is received to somehow attribute which contact connects to that gift.

JoAnne H., there's a separate discovery topic for the concern you mentioned: "Add Contact on Gift Records". I'm not sure why its vote count is low.

Definitely! There are frequent situations where someone legitimately qualifies as more than one kind of Contact - but we can only select one. Frankly, this drastically curtails the usefulness of the Contact Type field. It's absurd to have to create two relationships for the same person - but also absurd to have to choose between Contact Types when more than one may well apply (e.g., the same person may be the Primary Contact, Events Contact, and Stewardship Contact.)

Yes! We were talking about this today. We have come up with a round-a-bout wait by also using attributes to further break down the types (our Contact Types are Event Contact, Primary Event Contact, Donation Contact, etc) but then when we export that means we have another field to add in an already long list of needed fields...

We have added a contact attribute for contact type. I have yet to fully test it, but our consultant created it for this purpose and I believe has used it with other clients.

Best to use attributes to further segment contact type and not weaken the one-to-one relationship contact type currently provides for reporting.

To "Anonymous" on 8/20/14 14:14 -- can you share any information with me about how you are using contact type and contact attributes? We are looking to develop use of the attributes since that seems to be the current best option. Specifically, I'm interested to know what your contact type and attribute table options are. Would you be willing to share a list?