I think what would be better is to have multiple nickname fields available. I would prefer that alias remain a last name/org name alternative.

Our organization would also like this or something similar that solves this issue. RE can’t currently capture three versions of a first name. This is a problem when people go by first initial and last name, i.e. John Richard Smith prefers J. Richard Smith but answers to Richard.”

Kristin - the product can already handle the example you gave.

1) You put in John into first name, Richard into middle name and Smith into last name
2) You create an addressee type that uses first name initial - middle name - last name
3) You create an informal salutation type that uses middle name.

You would always want to put their legal first name into first name - not just J. (unless you do not know what it is). This will aid you in so many ways when running data append services later on - it should have John in first name.

Good point... Multiple nickname fields would also work. Otherwise, constituent search should be changed to include Alias and Nickname whether searching by first, middle OR last name.

Melissa in your example, we would not find his record if we searched for First Name = J. Richard, Last Name = Smith because search doesn't search Addressee.

But his first name is not J. Richard. Nor does he go by that. So why would anyone search on that? If you add Richard as a nickname (in addition to it being his middle name) wouldn't you just search on Richard?

Please consider adding additional nickname fields, or change search to include Alias and Nickname whether searching by first, middle, last name or org name

Could voters add more info about the end goal? Alias is not unique, and it is customizable so you can have Nickname field in alias a number of times to search on variations. As titled and described currently, this would be closed as "available today" without more info.

But Jenn - Alias is only checked when you fill in Last Name - correct? When (and why) would a person search putting the first name in the last name field??? And how can you check on alias/nickname AND last name. You can't! There is only one official nickname field that is checked during search when you have the "check nickname" checked. We need more nicknames!!!!

Jenn, see Kristin's note below. If JOHN RICHARD SMITH prefers J. RICHARD SMITH but answers to RICHARD, we need three searchable fields in his record for first name/nickname. Alias is a last name/org name field only; this was confirmed by Te'Retta Hall at Blackbaud. So all we have to work with is First Name and Nickname. We need more nicknames.

We have several nuns (sisters) with multiple names and if I search for Mary and her name is Susan, I won't be able to find her. Especially if she has a common last name. It would be nice if RE could bring back the alternative (alias) of the first name from the alias box. Does that make sense?

Melissa, here's an actual example. An individual's checks read JOHN RICHARD SMITH, so gift processing searches for him that way. He attends an event and registers/signs in as RICHARD SMITH, so our grassroots team searches for him that way. He signs letters or e-mails as J. RICHARD SMITH, so member relations searches for him that way and since they don't know what the J. stands for they can't search for JOHN. He wishes to be addressed in mailed correspondence as J. RICHARD, so his first name is set as J. RICHARD so the Addressee doesn't have to be editable.

It sure would help avoid the creation of dupe records if we could just have an additional nickname field

Also, we populate our e-mail correspondence with "Dear <First Name>", so we don't want JOHN in First Name because he does not go by John. And we don't want RICHARD in First Name because that's not his first name. J. RICHARD is the best option.

More nicknames!

The addressee does not need to be editable to get J. Richard to appear in it from John as first name and Richard as middle name. You need to add another addressee types to allow for this scenario which is common.

If I got corespondence that was addressed as J. Richard Smith and I needed to search for him in the database I would put in J and Smith. No matter whether you have John in first name or J. Richard, this should find that record.

Your email correspondence should be set to a Dear <informal salutation> so you do not have to corrupt your data by not putting his real first name in the first name field.

I agree we need more nicknames - I just think you have a couple of options in the existing database you are not taking advantage of.

I would like to add that there is some value in making more than just extra nicknames. I frequenly add in 'frequent misspellings" for last name into alias to make searching easier (the new search does not catch everything) and I would appreciate doing this for first name as well. I guess we do need first name aliases but I would want them separate from last name aliases.

The end goal, surely, is to be able to search on multiple alternative versions of a name in a name field other than last name. For example, I was recently talking with a prospect. He talked about another prospect known to him and referred to him as "Salt" XXXXXXXX. "Salt" is the name he is known by to a certain group of his peers. It took a fair amount of detective work to finally discover who this propsect was. There are many people who use many different names depending on circumstances (this is even more so, in my experience, with Asian named constituents in an English speaking society - I work in Australia and NZ)

I would love if we were allowed to specify different alias types to be substitutes for either first names or last names or both.

I would also really like this. Basically, a second Alias field that is linked to first name instead of surname. I'm dealing today with a constituent who has (legally) changed her first name, e.g. from Annabel Smith to Marilyn Smith. It seems correct to put her new name, Marilyn, in the 'First name' field now. However, it is also possible that someone would try to find her based on her old name, 'Annabel' (e.g. someone going based on paper records), and have no knowledge of her new name. I don't want to add 'Annabel' as a nickname because that would be confusing and she doesn't go by that any more. I could add 'Annabel' as an Alias, but that will only help if someone searches with 'Annabel' in the Surname field, which is a) counter-intuitive and b) requires all of our users to change their behaviour and c) is an extra step that you then have to complete *every time* you can't find a record. Changing addressees won't help because someone might search on Marilyn Smith OR Annabel Smith; addressees aren't searchable. What's needed is an option to add custom Alias types for first name, as well as for surname. First Name Alias and Last Name Alias. This seems like it would be quite simple to implement, and would be very useful for these kind of situations.

I would like in Config/Business rules to have the 'Constituent ID' also be an "AUTO ADD" for alias. That way you could simply type the ID number in the search field and find the constituent record. In Admin/globally change/constituents I thought about using the "COPY" global change function to copy the ID's to the aliases section - but unfortunately the aliases aren't an available field that you can copy ID's to. This would be most helpful for many of my clients who oftentimes like to search from ID rather than name.