Date Added on Constituent Record

Katherine Fallon
Katherine Fallon
Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

Hi Everyone,

We have been using the “Date Added” constituent field to identify new constituents for a variety of purposes (e.g. of everyone who signed up for a program, who is new to us?) In going through some recent data, I realized that this isn't always accurate. It will show that someone has been a member for 10 years, but their “Date Added” is this year. I'm wondering if merging records doesn't keep the oldest date added and therefore messes up this data point? Any ideas, advice on how to really know a constituent's origin date would be very helpful!

Thanks!

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Comments

  • Dennis Ladnier
    Dennis Ladnier
    Ninth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant

    merging keeps the ‘date added’ of the surviving record - in the past we have reviewed the impact to any data analysis/reports which uses the ‘date added' field and determined it is >99% accurate - not 100% but so close that (with our volume) it does not impact any business decisions. With that said, we also calculate a ‘zero date', this is the earliest date from many factors (date added, actions, events, etc) which does correctly provide the date someone first engaged with us, Again, with our volume the ‘date added’ very accurate for our normal reporting.

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