Name Formats: What you need to know

As a Customer Success Consultant, I work with Altru customers during the first few months after implementation. One of the most common topics I receive questions about is about Name Formats. Often these are new for organizations and there is a lot to consider when building them. I’ve put together a list of 5 “Need-to-Knows” about Name Formats. I hope this list will help you to get your Name Formats in tip-top shape!

1. The Basics: Name Formats are all based on fields
There’s no better place to start than with the basics. In your database, hop over to Marketing and Communications and click Name format options. The Name Formats tab is where it all begins:

As you can see here, Altru provides us a list of common Name Formats and we can add new ones if we’d like. Although we may see “Mr. and Mrs. William H. Smith,” these are actually based on merge fields in our database. So for example, “Mr. and Mrs. William H. Smith” is actually built like this in Altru:
[Title] and [Spouse Title] [First Name] [Middle Name] [Last Name] could appear like this on Mrs. Smith’s record: Mrs. and Mr. Margaret A. Adams.

It’s very important to keep this in mind when making decisions about how to configure your Name Format Defaults such as Primary Addressee, Primary Salutation and any other defaults that will appear on a constituent record.

You’ll also want to check the other options you see on this screen:

• 
  
• Show as initial (great for middle name!)
  
• Remove next space
  
• Remove if previous or next entry is blank
  

These options will help with the appearance of your format. For example, if you forget to check the box to remove the “and” if the previous or next entry is blank, you could have a name format for single gal appear like this: “Ms. and Taylor Swift.”

You will then use these field-fueled formats under Name format defaults on the Name Format Options Tab. These will appear automatically when a new constituent record is created:
(We’ll get to Name Format Options, a bit later!)

2. Making Changes: What updates retroactively and what doesn’t?
Inevitably, once you’ve configured your Name Format Defaults, you may want to change something. For example, maybe you decide not to use titles or want a different name format to be Primary Addressee.

Most changes that you’ll make won’t affect existing records; only new records going forward. That’s why it’s very important to put some careful thought into how you’d like to configure these.

The ONLY thing that will update retroactively is a change to the actual format under the Name Formats tab we explored before. For example, I have the format “Mr. and Mrs. William Smith” specified as my Formal Addressee:

If I go to the Name Formats tab and change “Mr. and Mrs. William Smith” to add a middle initial, this will update on the constituent record: See this video example. (NOTE: Some of the standard Altru formats can’t be edited!)

However, if I add a new default (like Board Addressee), choose a new name format for an existing default (like “The Smith Family”) or try to make the Formal Addressee primary instead, you see that won’t update on the existing record: See this video example. These settings will only apply to newly added records.

3. One Format Doesn’t Fit All: Editing and customizing Name Formats
We all know that a single format won’t work for everyone—some people like to be addressed their nicknames, we have lots of constituents with spouses who have different last names, etc.,—so we many need to do some clean up and customizing on individual records.

I always encourage clients to consider what would work for most constituents when configuring Name Format Defaults then edit the name formats on your constituent records for the rest.

On your constituent record, go to the Personal Info tab and click Personal. Under Name formats, you can click Add to add a new format or click Edit to change an existing one:

In the next screen, you have the option to choose another format (these are coming from from the Name Formats tab we explored in #1) or to type a custom format:
Keep in mind, custom Name Formats don’t update automatically if you add or remove a spouse, so always check Name Formats when adding/removing spouse relationships.

4. Putting Name Formats to Work: How they interact with Mailings
Name Format Defaults appear on the constituent record, but how do they interact with mailings in Altru? That’s where Name Format Options come in:

Name Format Options allow you to specify how you’d like to address Individuals, Organization contacts, and Groups/Households. As you can see from the screenshot below, we pick what format to use from the individual’s record OR if they don’t have any of those formats, we can choose a backup format under Otherwise, use this format:

You can have as many Name Format Options configured as you’d like in your database! And you will specify which option you’d like to use when creating your mailing:
Let’s say, you’re sending a mailing through Appeal Mailings and choosing to send one letter per household. Which spouses’ name format will appear in the results?! I’m glad you asked—if both spouses are included in your selection, Altru will pull the format from the constituent marked as the Primary Household Member.

5. Thanks to Name Format Options, it doesn’t matter what’s defined on the constituent record…
If you’d like a uniform look to your mailing or need to do a little name format clean up, you can also use Name Format Options to build an Addressee or Salutation from scratch.

All you have to do is remove any formats defined on a record from the grid and choose a name format under Otherwise, use this format. Once you run your mailing, everyone in your results will have this format—even if it doesn’t exist on their record:

If you select a “Joint Name Format” here (indicated on the Name Formats tab from #1 with a green check in the Joint Name Format column), Altru will build the format according to the rules on the Joint Name Format tab:

For more information about configuring Name Format Options, see our Job Aid with step-by-step instructions: Customizing and Using Name Format Options in Altru.