Creating and Editing Relationship Types

You use InterAction Administrator to create and edit relationship types. When you create a relationship type, you must specify information in the following fields.

Changing any of these settings for a relationship type will affect how relationships are displayed as well as how relationships are entered in both the Web Client and the Windows Client.

You create and edit relationship types using the New/Edit Relationship Type dialog box. This has the following two tabs:

• General
• Name Format

Components of a Relationship Type

Component	Description
General Tab
Name	The name is used to identify the relationship type when using relationships in both the Web Client and the Windows Client.
Description Label	When creating a relationship between two contacts, the user can enter additional information about the relationship in a “description” field. The label helps direct users about what information to enter. For example, for the “Board Member” relationship, users should enter the committee membership and the years the person served on the board. Therefore, the description label for the Board Member relationship type is “Term and committee membership.”
Valid For	Relationship types can have any or all of the following “valid for” variations: Person to Person Person to Company Company to Person Company to Company For example, “Consultant” and “Consulting Client” are valid for all four options, while a Parent / Subsidiary relationship is only valid between companies (Company to Company). For the converse relationship type, the “Valid For” setting is reversed. For example, if the forward relationship is valid for Person to Company then the converse is valid for Company to Person.
Key relationship type	Indicates that relationships that use the type are especially important. Key relationships are displayed more prominently in the Web Client when viewing Relationship Intelligence. For more information, see Key Relationships.
Category	Categories are used to organize similar relationships together. They are used in the InterAction Web Client to build relationship pages. For more information, see Organizing Relationship Types with Categories.
Weighted order	Each relationship type must have a weighted order value between one and 100. This value is used with the Relationship Map™ feature and when displaying relationships for a contact to sort the relationships by their meaning or relative importance. When viewing relationships, a relationship type with a weighted order of 100 is the most important and sorts to the top, while a relationship type with a weighted order of 1 will be located at the bottom of a list of relationships. For more information, see Weighted Order for Relationships.
Permission	Permissions can be used to restrict the people allowed to create a relationship of a particular type. For example, you could use a permission to restrict the ability to create Key Client Contact relationships to a select group of users. For more information, see Security for Relationships.
Converse Relationship Converse Name	Relationships appear for both contacts involved. When you create a relationship on a contact, the converse is automatically created for the other contact. For more information, see Converse Relationships.
Status	Relationship types can be active or inactive. Active relationship types can be used when creating new relationships. Inactive relationship types cannot be used to create new relationships. However, relationships that already exist using that type are not removed when a type is made inactive.
Former value	Even after a relationship has ended, it is often valuable to maintain the information about its existence. You can choose whether former applies to the relationship, how important the former relationship is and whether former relationships should be created when using the user cleanup tools when a user leaves your company. For more information, see Former Relationships.
Strength of Relationship	Some relationships are stronger than others. For example, two contacts can be very good friends. For each relationship type, you can choose to automatically set relationships as very strong, not strong, or let the user decide. For more information, see Relationship Strength. For the Professional Relationship type, you can configure the strength levels used to measure the strength of these relationships. See Professional Relationship Strength Levels for more information.
Name Format Tab
Forward Relationship Options	Defines the different versions of the name used throughout InterAction when referring to the relationship type. You need to define four name formats: Name Former Name Sentence Former Sentence You can use the usage examples below the options to determine how to word the name formats. For more information, see Defining How Relationships Appear with the Name Format.
Converse Relationship	Defines the different versions of the name used thought InterAction when referring to the converse relationship. You need to define four name formats: Name Former Name Sentence Former Sentence You can use the usage examples below the options to determine how to word the name formats. For more information, see Defining How Relationships Appear with the Name Format.

New/Edit Relationship Type Dialog Box - General Tab

New/Edit Relationship Type Dialog Box - Name Format Tab

Create a Relationship Type

For more information about any of the components of a relationship see Components of a Relationship Type.

1. On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Relationships in the entity list.
2. Choose Types.
3. Choose New to open the New Relationship Type dialog box.
4. Enter the relationship Name and Description Label.
5. Select which combinations of contacts the relationship is Valid For. You can choose one or multiple combinations.
6. Select if this is a Key Relationship Type. For more about the key attribute, see Key Relationships.
7. Select the Category for the relationship type.
   • You can select an existing category, or create a new category by typing it in the list box.
   • For more about categories, see Organizing Relationship Types with Categories.
8. Enter the Weighted Order value. You must enter a whole number between one and 100. For details, see Weighted Order for Relationships.

9. Select the Permission for the relationship type. This defines which users can create relationships using the type.

   Permission	Description
   System Administrator	use for system relationship types that end users should not be able to use, such as Duplicate of.
   Group	assign the ability to edit the relationship to a group of users. You must create the group before you can assign it permission to edit a relationship.
   Everyone	should be selected for most relationship types in InterAction.

   For more details, see Security for Relationships.

10. Enter the relationship type that will be the Converse Relationship.

    • To create a new relationship to be the converse, choose <Create New> and enter the Converse Name.
    • If the relationship type is a converse of itself, choose <Converse to Self>.

    For details, see Converse Relationships.

    The converse relationship type will automatically have the same settings. The Valid For options will be the converse Valid For options.

11. Set the Status of the Relationship Type. Unless you are creating a system relationship type, you should make the type Active.
12. Select if the Former value applies to this relationship type and enter the weighted order value for the former value. For details, see Former Relationships.
13. Select the Strength of Relationship default setting. For most relationships, you should leave this as User sets the value. For details, see Relationship Strength.
14. Select the Name Format tab and enter the names and sentences for the forward relationship and the converse relationship.
    • If a relationship type is the converse of itself, you only need to enter the names and sentences for the forward relationship.
    • For details, see Defining How Relationships Appear with the Name Format.
15. When finished, choose OK.

16. When you are done creating types, choose Close to close the Manage Relationship Types dialog box.

    For details about how your new relationship type will appear in Windows and the Web Client, see the following:

    • How Does a New Relationship Type Appear in the Windows Client?
    • How Does a New Relationship Type Appear in the Web Client?

Edit a Relationship Type

1. On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Relationships in the entity list.
2. Choose Types.
3. Select the type to edit and choose Edit.

4. Edit the relationship type fields as needed, then choose OK.

   Note that you can’t change the relationship type’s converse. You can, however, change several settings for the converse relationship type including the name and sentence values on the Name Format tab.

5. When you are done editing types, choose Close to close the Manage Relationship Types dialog box.

Inactivate (Remove) a Relationship Type

You cannot delete a relationship type, you can only make it inactive. When a relationship type is inactive, users can no longer create relationships using that type in the Windows or Web Client. Any relationships that have already been created using that relationship type are not affected, however.

1. On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Relationships in the entity list.
2. Choose Types.
3. Select the type to inactivate and choose Edit.

4. From the Status list, select Inactive.

   When you inactivate a relationship type, the converse is automatically inactivated as well.

5. When you are done editing the types, choose Close to close the Manage Relationship Types dialog box.

How Does a New Relationship Type Appear in the Windows Client?

A new relationship type is available in InterAction Windows Client immediately, although if you are running Windows Client when you create the type, you need to exit and restart the program to see the type. The type will be available wherever relationship types are used. This includes the following locations:

• The New/Edit Relationship dialog box. Users can select the type when creating and editing relationships.
• The dialog boxes for creating a custom search. Users can search for contacts that have relationships that use the type.

All relationships created using the custom type will automatically appear in the Related Contacts view.

In the example shown below, the type “is on the Client Services Team” is a custom type added to InterAction.

Custom Relationship Type in the Windows Client

How Does a New Relationship Type Appear in the Web Client?

A new relationship type becomes available in InterAction Web Client after the next InterAction Application Server cache refresh. The refresh updates the cache with the current set of relationship types.

Without making any configuration changes to Web Client, a new relationship type is available in several locations:

• Dialog boxes for creating and editing relationships
• The Company/Person Overview pages and Related People, Companies, and Organizations page

Creating and Editing Relationships

Your custom relationship type is automatically available on the dialog boxes for creating and editing relationships. Users can select to use the type when creating and editing relationships.

In the example shown in below, the type “gave a referral...” is a custom relationship type added to InterAction.

Using a Custom Relationship Type in the Web Client

Company/Person Overview Pages and Related People, Companies, and Organizations Page

The Company/Person Overview pages and the Related People, Companies, and Organizations page list the relationships for a contact with a set of links for filtering the set of relationships.

For more details about how InterAction finds the content for these pages, see Related Contacts Section of the Overview Pages.

Relationships created using your custom type always appear in this list under the all relationships filter. They will also appear under the other filters if they meet the criteria for the filter.

The following table summarizes the criteria required for a relationship that uses a custom type to appear in one of the standard filters in the Web Client. Most of the links use relationship type categories to filter the list; for details about categories, see Organizing Relationship Types with Categories.

Displaying a Custom Relationship Type in the Web Client

Filter Name	Can a Custom Relationship Type Appear under this Filter?
My Co-workers Who Know This Person (people only)	Yes, if a user in your organization has a relationship with a person that uses your custom type.
Employees (companies only)	Never. This filter uses company association to display current employees for the company.
Key Relationships	Always if the custom type is designated as a key relationship type. See Key Relationships.
Co-workers (people only)	Never. This filter uses company association to display the people who also work at the contact’s company.
People My Co-workers Know (companies only)	Yes, if a user in your organization has a relationship with a person who works at the company, and relationship uses your custom type.
People I Know (companies only)	Never. This filter uses the Knows/Known By types to determine who you know at a company.
All Relationships	Always.
Board Member	Only if the custom type is in the Board Membership category.
Member	Only if the custom type is in the Organization Membership category.
Attended School (people only)	Only if the custom type is in the Education category
Supporters	Only if the custom type is in the Charitable Organization category.
Receives / Provides Services	Only if the custom type is in the Service Relationship category.
All Former Filters	The criteria for the former filters (Former Board Member, etc.) is the same as the regular filters except that they only display relationships marked as former.

In the example illustrated below, the type “Received Referral” is a custom type added to InterAction. This custom type has been configured as a key relationship type, so relationships that use it automatically appear under the Key Relationship filter. As noted previously, this does not require any Web Client-specific configuration.

Viewing Relationships for a Contact in the Web Client

A custom relationship type within one of the standard relationship type categories is treated the same as the standard types within the category. Wherever the category is used as criteria for finding relationships or for grouping relationships, the custom type will be included.

If your custom relationship type uses a custom category, that category does not automatically appear in the Web Client. You will need to configure Web Client to include the new category by editing a nugget list configuration file. For information about nugget list declarations, see Overview of Nugget List Declarations.

For more about how relationships appear in the Web Client, see the following:

• Related Contacts Section of the Overview Pages
• Related Contacts Page