We are looking to add something to a constituent's record in order to track their 2-digit ('97) Class Of year.  I was wondering how you guys track this in your system or any ideas of a good place to put that. We have the class of field already populated with the 4-Digit (1997) so that is off-limits as an idea, but anything else would be greatly appreciated.

 Attribute comes to mind. We don't do this but it's a good idea. It would probably be easier to use as a constituent attribute instead of an education attribute but education attribute makes more sense and in my mind keeps the database "cleaner" (like items with like items).

Just my 2 cents

 laura

ps I love the Grand Pumbaa line. You should try to get it on your business cards.

Hello Doug and Laura,

Just a quick question, are you wanting to track the two digit class year so that it can be included in addressee/salutations? If so, unfortunately, attributes will not work as a solution. 

I've worked with a few clients in the past who wanted to be able to have an addressee listed as: Naomi Harding '92

Unfortunately, like Doug's school the decision to set the Class Year as 4-digit in Configuration was set in stone so they could not just build formulas that pulled in the Class Year (if they could have changed it to the 2-digit option, this solution would have been ideal).  Their school added an additional addressee/salutation type called 2 Digit Class Year Addressee and when they pulled in the formula that had been built as:

FirstName LastName ClassYear -- resulting in Naomi Harding 1992

They marked it Editable and changed the Class Year value to only two digits to get the value they wanted.

I have also had one school who built the class years as constituency codes with long description 1992 and short description 92 and as long as that is every alums Primary Constituency Code, you can build a formula in Configuration to pull FirstName LastName ConstituencyAbbreviation.  This would be problematic only for those records who had a different Primary Constituency Code due to the hierarchy policy at the school.

I hope you find this information helpful and have a great weekend and holiday,

Naomi

 Hi Naomi,

 If I create a salutation First Name Last Name Class Year  and I use a 4 digit class year, do I have to manually edit each salutation individually to get it to a 2 digit class year? At this point in time I don't remember why we use the 4 digit class year but I know that's what was decided and changing it won't be easy.

 Thanks,

laura

we use the 2 year because not a single alum from 1009 is still alive -- our aldest alum is from the class of 1931 so there is not currently any overlap.

Hi Laura,

Yes, you would need to either mark them Editable individually and edit the text to the shortened 2 digit version OR this could be done through an export of those addressee/salutations, doing the reformatting in Excel and then import to update the values.  Either option does involve a bit of a time investment. 

You may want to meet with the other RE policy makers at your school and determine if like Nina's school, there really isn't any overlap and you could change the setting in Configuration. 

Unfortunately, I have most often found that there are certain departments, colleges at a university or individual policy makers who prefer the 4 digit format in either standard reports or addressees and the only peaceful resolution is to use the Editable functionality.

Thank you,

Naomi

Because our Alumni records go as far back as 1924, we're sticking with the four-digit formula to avoid issues with future classes.  I haven't taken on adding yet another Additional ADD/SAL (most Alumni records have up to 6 on top of their Primary ones) - so for the time being I just replace the 19 and 20 with # ' and replace the # sign with a blank (that way the apostrophe is slanted in the correct direction for any font used) in my exported .csv file before sending off to print. 

I'm sure the day will come when I'll finally go through the process of adding/correcting an editable addressee field...sigh.

I no longer work for an organization with the Alumni module, but I was thinking - two digit codes are set up in business rules...I THINK