Relationships

Owned by Robert Lenk
Last updated: Feb 04, 2024 by Chris Barrett
4 min read

Relationships

Relationships allow a connection between or among individuals. For example, a student to a parent or an alumnus to an employer.

Relationship Types

Relationship types (codes) are relationships like parent, employer, etc. and defined using STParm MRRLCC. Once created, the Refresh Data Cache (Admin > Refresh Data Cache) must be run for the relationship option to appear.

Relationship Reciprocals

Reciprocal relationship rules will automatically create a relationship between two relationship types. For example, if someone is indicated as a wife of the original person, you can automatically create a husband-wife relationship.

Define reciprocal relationships

  1. Navigate to Registrar > Relationship Reciprocals

  2. Choose the primary relation

  3. Choose the reciprocal relation 

  4. Choose the primary gender

  5. Choose the reciprocal gender

  6. Check active to make the relationship live in the system

  7. Check add reverse in order for the rule to apply in reverse

  8. Click Submit

Create Relationship with Existing Person or Organization

If the related individual or organization already exists in Campus Cafe, follow these steps. Campus Cafe recommends creating the related entity as a standalone individual or organization when the related entity may have many relations. For example, an employer who employs large numbers of alumni.

Create the related individual or organization

Only complete this step if the related individual or organization does not already exist in Campus Cafe.

  1. Navigate to All Users > Add Non-Student/Org

  2. For a constituent (e.g. parent, donor) click Constituent
    For an organization (e.g. employer) click Change to Organization

  3. Complete the remaining fields as called for by your business processes

  4. Click Add

Create the relationship

  1. Navigate to the individual

  2. Navigate to Person Selected > Relations

  3. Click Lookup Person or Org to find the person or organization

  4. In the Add Relation Type box, choose the relation

  5. The add reciprocal relation is checked by default, but will only add the reciprocal if it is set up.

  6. Click Add Relationship

  7. Enter information for the related person

  8. Click Save

Create Standalone Relationship

A standalone relationship creates the related person without the related entity's own specific, detailed record in Campus Cafe. Such individuals or organizations will not be searchable from finders. As such Campus Cafe only recommends creating such relationships in limited circumstances when global reporting of them is unnecessary.

  1. Navigate to the individual

  2. Navigate to Person Selected > Relations

  3. In the Add Relation Type box, choose the relation

  4. The add reciprocal relation is checked by default, but will only add the reciprocal if it is set up.

  5. Click Add Relationship

  6. Enter information for the related person

  7. Click Save

Technical Explanation of Database Relationships

There are two relationship concepts in Campus Café.

  1. Non-database relationships are where information about the other person/organization is stored in the original relationship record itself. A separate record is not created for the related individual. For example, a non-database relationships might include alumni/children where the user might want to list the children of alumni, but not create a separate, detailed database record for each child.

  2. Database relationships relate to another person/organization in the database. A separate record is created for the related individual. Examples of database relationships might include parent/student, husband/wife, where both persons already have their own unique records established and detailed information is required for both parties.

Spouse Relationship Considerations

Campus Café supports storing limited spouse information within a constituent record as a non-database relationship. If more information is needed, a related person can be set up as a database relationship with storage of biographical data, employer data, etc. and ancillary data like gifts, enrollments, billing. Campus Café recommends not creating a separate database record for the spouse if only the below basic information is required.

Information stored on the original constituent’s Bios screen

  • First Name

  • Last Name

  • Middle Name

  • Salutation

  • Suffix

  • Nick Name

  • Maiden Name

  • Former Name

  • Marital Status 

  • Gender

  • Date of birth

  • Date of death

  • Deceased code

Information stored on the original constituent’s Email Address screen

Email Address (use type SPEMAIL)

Information stored on the original constituent’s Address/Phone screen

Phone Number (use type SMB – spouse mobile)

When to create a separate record for the spouse

If the spouse needs his or her own person record (e.g. he or she was a student, a donor, or have some other relationship where you need to track other information like employer), then a relationship should be set up with a separate person record.

 Only three relationship types are allowed for related spouse records: HUS(Husband), WIF(Wife), SPS(Spouse). If a spousal relationship is set up using one of these codes, then the People Finder will automatically override the data on the grid and in the download to the related person’s data. If there is not a related record, then the spouse fields will be populated with the data entered on the Bios page for the constituent.

Create non-database relationship for spouse

  1. Launch the original constituent

  2. Navigate to Person Selected > Bios

  3. Enter the spousal data in the spouse fields

  4. Click Save

Searching Relationships

The People Finders may be utilized to return a population of individuals and those they are related to. For example, a group of students and their parents.

  1. Navigate to a People Finder

  2. In the Relationship Type criteria specify the type of relationship (Tip: Click the three-bar icon to the right of the box to see all types of relationships)

  3. Click Submit

  4. Under the Results area, click the Columns for Download icon

    DownloadIcon.png

  5. Ensure that Relationship Person is checked

  6. Under the Actions area, click the Download button

  7. Click Relationships for Page to download the current page of results or Relationships for All to download all pages of results

    DownloadButton.png

  8. The file will download in a .tab format, which may be opened with Excel. The Rel Name column represents the individual related to the individual in the Person Name column.