Even after a relationship has ended, it is often valuable to maintain the information about its existence. Instead of deleting a relationship after it has ended, it may be valuable to maintain a record of it as a “former relationship.” This can be especially useful when using the Relationship Map™. For example, someone who is currently on the board of directors for a company might know a person who was formerly on the board for that same company. This former relationship therefore might be important when using the Relationship Map to find a connection.
For each relationship type you create, you can set whether or not former applies. This is specified in the InterAction Administrator > Relationships > Relationship Types for each type individually.
If former applies, users in the Web Client or the Windows Client can change a relationship that uses the type from a current relationship to a former relationship by editing the relationship. If a user tries to delete a relationship that allows former, InterAction prompts the user to make the relationship former instead.
Note that some relationship types [e.g., Professional Relationship] cannot be configured to allow former relationships. A professional relationship either exists or does not exist; the concept of former does not apply.
If the former option does not apply to a relationship type, the options for making the relationship former do not appear in InterAction.
[A] A Windows Client user makes a relationship former by selecting the Former check box when editing the item.
[B] A Web Client user makes a relationship former by selecting the former version of the type from the drop-down list when editing the item.
You specify whether or not former applies to a relationship type by selecting the ‘Former’ value is applicable for this relationship type option when editing the type.
A former relationship type can have different settings than the “current” version of the relationship type. For example, a former Board Member relationship is not as important as a current Board Member relationship. Because of that, you can set the weighted order for the former version of the Board Member relationship type to be lower than the current version.
Set the Weighted Order for a Former Relationship
- On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Relationships in the entity list.
- Choose Types.
- Select the type to edit and choose Edit.
- Under ‘Former’ value, make sure ‘Former’ value is applicable for this relationship type is selected.
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Enter the weighted order you want to use for the former relationship type.
For more about how weighted order is used, see Weighted Order for Relationships.
- Choose OK.
- When you are done editing types, choose Close to close the Manage Relationship Types dialog box.
Making Relationships Former When a User Leaves Your Organization
Certain relationships between professionals in your organization and other contacts may be dependent on the fact that the professional works for your organization. For example, the relationship partner relationship type is intended to record the person at your organization who is responsible for managing and nurturing your organization’s relationship with a particular client or individual at a client. If a professional who has been designated as the relationship partner for a client leaves your organization, the relationship should become former.
You can partially automate this process by setting the Mark as ‘Former’ when contact leaves firm option for the relationship type. If you select this option for a relationship type, then you can use the user cleanup tools to automatically make the relationships for the user former.
Note that this only works for users; this option does not have any effect on relationships between two contacts outside of your organization.
In a new installation of InterAction, the relationship partner relationship is the only one that uses the Mark as ‘Former’ when contact leaves firm option.
For details about running the user cleanup tools, see the Administering InterAction guide.
Making Relationships Former When a User Leaves the Organization
The professional Ed Roberts is the main person responsible for working with Jane Tarnoff of TeleNorth Financial Services (a very important client for your organization). Therefore, he is set as the Relationship Partner for Jane.
Ed decides to leave your organization to pursue a different opportunity. As part of inactivating his InterAction account, your administrator edits Ed’s account and selects to set relationships as former. The Cleanup tab of the Edit User Account dialog box lists all of the relationship types that have been configured with the Mark as ‘Former’ when contact leaves firm option.
After making this change to Ed’s account, the Relationship Partner relationship between Ed and Jane becomes former instead of current.