Best Practices for Handling Deceased Persons

In the unfortunate occurrence of a person in your system passing we have some best practices to follow to make sure that you ensure they are removed from any mailing labels, are not sent email, and are not included in filtering or directories. This can be a sensitive issue that all will want to handle appropriately so we advise that you take these steps as soon as possible. 

Click here to skip to ​Editing Family Account.

1. The first step is to mark the person record as "deceased." From the People table, select and edit the person record in question. Now, expand the Edit This Record section. By selecting "deceased" this will automatically remove the "active" status for the person once you save this setting. SPECIAL NOTE: While you are making this edit you will also want to select Do Not Solicit and Hide From Public Directories
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2. When you mark a Person "deceased," it makes their person record inactive and it also adjusts the salutation of the surviving spouse, however, we recommend running the Recalc Saluations tool just to make sure it does remove the deceased person from the salutation. 
   While still editing the person record click on the Addresses tab, select the address in question, and click Recalc Salutations.
   
   
   
3. Marking a person record as deceased/inactive will make sure that this person does not get included when filtering for active people and will ensure that you do not email or send them letters accidentally. However, it is also prudent to mark them as "Hide from Public Directories," mark their relationship to their address as "do not mail," and their email as "do not email." These three options will ensure that even if for some reason you selected this person for sending letters (mail merge) or sending email you will make sure that they will not be included and that they will never be included incorrectly in the public directory you may show in the portal. These are just fail-safes to make sure there aren't any mistakes.
   IMPORTANT: These settings can all be edited from the person record. If you have followed step 1 above, you have already completed the step to "Hide from Public Directories." If you have not completed step 1 return now and complete this step.
   
   • To adjust the relationship to address as Do Not Mail: 
     • From the edit person record screen, and go to the Addresses tab. Select the address and click Edit Bridge.
     • Remove the Receive Mail and Send Official Docs options, then click Save and Back.
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   • To edit the email address as Do Not Email:
     • From the edit person record screen, go to the Email Addresses tab. Select and edit the address.
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     • Select the Do Not Publish and Do Not Email options, then click Save and Back.

​Editing Family Account

You have a few options when it comes to the Family account but the primary concern should be to make sure that this person no longer has invoices tied to them. This can sometimes happen so you may opt to remove the student from the family as this will ensure that no invoices are tied to this person. 

1. When editing the person record, go to General > Family > View.
   
   
   
2. Go to Family Members > select the student > click Remove From Family.
   NOTE: Remember this action is simply done to make sure that no future invoices for the student can be tied to this family. It will not affect any past invoices or payments.