Need to uncheck "is spouse" box -- find a way to globally remove "spouse" relationship from records

Susan LeMier
Susan LeMier
Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussions

This need stems from information I found regarding running reports: (below is what I found)

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Decreased spouse is included in Constituent directory

When running a Constituent directory and not including Deceased records, but including Spouse (by going to Format tab>Detail and checking the option to include spouse) the spouse is in the report, even if the Spouse is marked as Deceased

Answer:

The option to Include Spouse is based on the Spouse Relationship regardless of if the Spouse is marked as Deceased.

The relationship can be changed to a non-spouse relationship by navigating to the Relationship tab, opening the spouse relationship and unchecking the Spouse button in the lower left corner of the relationship and click Save and Close on the relationship record. This will keep the relationship record with the Constituent, but it will no longer be a spouse relationship.

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My goal is to run the Constituent Directory with only “live” spouses included.

It appears I need to remove the “spouse” relationship from 3000+ records. I need to do this on a global-scale. I've already tried many global changes: 1. remove spouse from “relationship” field on the relationship tab. 2. remove spouse from “reciprocal” field on relationship tab. 3. Replace “check” with “unchecked” for ‘is spouse’. None of these have removed the checkmark and deceased spouses are still showing up on my report.

Are there any suggestions, or known methods that work that anyone could share?

Comments

  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 August 2025 Monthly Challenge Badge bbcon 2025 Attendee Badge

    I think you're saying that in the cases you've tested, removing and unchecking still doesn't remove them from your report? Have I correctly understood your situation?

  • Susan LeMier
    Susan LeMier
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1

    Heather: If I were to manually remove the checkmark from the relationship tab, then the spouse does not show up on my report. Removing the checkmark is the solution, however, I don't want to have to manually update 3000+ records. I was hoping for a global fix. All the global changes I've tried have not successfully removed the checkmark. Sorry, I should have explained that better.

  • Larry Wheeler
    Larry Wheeler
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Susan LeMier I am sorry I don't have the time to test this out and provide a better response, but it's an extremely busy time right now :)

    I couldn't find anything about removing the Is Spouse check, but here is an article on how to ADD the check. Perhaps, you can reverse the process after reading through the article? Again, apologies for not being able to test it out first.

    How to globally mark the Is spouse checkbox (blackbaud.com)

  • Susan LeMier
    Susan LeMier
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    Larry: Thank you for the information. I have also read the article you suggested. I basically reversed the process and it did not remove the checkmark. I had hoped it would work, but it did not.
  • Larry Wheeler
    Larry Wheeler
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    Susan - Once I get a couple of things done this morning, I will look at some of my imports and see if I can find something, if no one else gets you an answer before then.

  • Larry Wheeler
    Larry Wheeler
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Susan LeMier In your original post, step 3, was that attempt through Admin>Import>Individual Relationship and using the “Update existing records” under What do you want to do? If not, have a look at that process.

    If so, did you also try “Create import file” ? I have had to create an import file, make the change in that file and use it for “Update existing records” in a separate run.

  • Mark Guncheon
    Mark Guncheon
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    I don't see any way to globally change that checkbox. But you can do an Individual relationship import that would remove that checkbox.
    1. Do a query that gives you a spreadsheet with the following columns - Is spouse, IRRelat, IRRecip, IRFirstname, IRLastname, Import ID, and Individual Relationship ID
    2. Is spouse = No; both IRRelat and IRRecip = spouse; use first and last names for the next two columns; Import ID is constituent import ID; and then Individual relationship ID is just that
    4. Import using Import ID
    5. Test Test Test the import.

    Here's what my import looked like:

    4278ee98551dc357d6bd85b941a36461-origina

    Hope this helps.

  • Susan LeMier
    Susan LeMier
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    No. I have not tried to use the import function, but it seems that might be my only option. I will look at the tips offered to see what works for me.

    Thank you for taking time to help with my issue.
  • Susan LeMier
    Susan LeMier
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1

    Mark: It seems an Import is my only option. I'm going to give this a try. Will post how it worked. Thank you for your assistance.

  • JoAnn Strommen
    JoAnn Strommen Community All-Star
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 January 2026 Monthly Challenge 2025 bbcon Attendee Badge

    In my experience the relationship/reciprocal data has no connection to the spouse checkbox. You can have relationships identified as spouse, no data or any text you want in those fields. I wouldn't mess with those fields unless you are okay with removing that data.

    I think an import to update records should work. I'm surprised that the reverse of the link that @Larry Wheeler provided doesn't do it.

  • Susan LeMier
    Susan LeMier
    Fifth Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1

    I was successful in removing the check from “is spouse” box on the relationship tab by performing an IMPORT to update existing records. HUGE thank you to Mark and Larry for pointing me in that direction, and especially to Mark for providing me the specific info I used for the query and import. This is what I did:

    I created a “Constituent” – Static query to gather the records I wanted to update.

    Criteria:

    700f057c91e860c134653110d22d3af4-origina

    Output:

    07a412641c0223074430f9d06f2c2442-origina

    I exported the file.

    Column headings from the export were changed

    From:

    ec3e058c20d70bdf1af966da75229bde-origina

    To:

    2b029e265ffc040bf21793d96db74cbb-origina

    I changed the values in the columns as follows:

    IRIsspouse = NO

    IRRelat = Spouse

    IRRecip = Spouse

    IRFirstName = (leave as is)

    IRlastName = (leave as is)

    ImportID = (leave as is)

    IRImpID = (leave as is)

    Then I saved the file as CSV.

    Next, I performed an IMPORT to update existing records. Type of Import: Constituent > Individual Relationship

    (General)

    What do you want to do? Update existing records

    What file do you wish to import? Selected the saved CSV file

    How do you want the system to identify existing constituents? Use the import ID

    (File layout)

    What is the format of this import file? Delimited

    Field Separators and Text Qualifiers: Comma - Quotation

    (Fields)

    ** I left as the program loaded them:

    9dc195ff93588cd7561c8278767b9e22-origina

    (Summary)

    You can mark as you prefer. I always create a control report, but good idea to also create an output query of updated records.

  • Mark Guncheon
    Mark Guncheon
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 5 Name Dropper Participant

    Great job, Susan.

  • Leslie McGeady
    Leslie McGeady
    Eighth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Participant
    Thank you for sharing very specific directions Susan. What a sense of accomplishment to get this done!

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