Deceased Person Tool
It's a difficult time when an individual passes away, but handling their records doesn't have to be. With the Deceased Person tool, you can identify and update their records all at once.
- The tool is available on the Contacts page, and you must launch it from an open record.
- The individual's user account password are null, preventing future logins with that user account.
- Each suggested change is optional. You can hover over each option to see what change will be made.
- If an option is not applicable for the individual, it is grayed out and you can't select it. For example, you won't have the option to transfer donations to the spouse if the individual wasn't married.
- The tool clears all applicable options by default. You must select the changes you want to make.
Mark a Person Deceased
Best Practices for Using the Deceased Person Tool
Add a Reviewer to the Process
If you want someone to review any contact marked as Deceased, create a process that sends an email to ask them to review the record. See the example below, which uses the Table Name of Contacts, Trigger Field of Contact_Status_ID
, and Dependent Condition of Contacts.Contact_Status_ID = 3
.
Transfer Donations
- Have the Contact Status of Active.
- Be in the same household.
- Have the Household Position of Head of Household.
- Have the Contact Marital Status of Married.
- Have a Married Contact Relationship record in common.
Deceased Child — If the deceased person is a child with two remaining Heads of Household, the donations transfer to the Head with the lowest Donor ID. If there is only one Head, the donations transfer to that person.
Remove from or Moving to a Household
- If the deceased individual is the last person in their Household, leave them in it to maintain their last known address. Do not select Remove From Household.
- If the deceased individual is not the last one in their Household, remove them. Select Remove From Household. Otherwise, they'll continue to show up in places like label reports and in Check-In.
- This removes the individual from their original Household.
- Any existing Care Case and Household Care Log records remain linked to the original Household and are unaffected.
- If you remove deceased individuals from their Household and they still have donations, the Standard Statement Routine creates a Household for them.
- Select Move to Separate Household — If the deceased individual is not the last one in their Household but you need to maintain their Household Name and Congregation, move them to a separate Household.
- This creates a new Household using the same Household Name and Congregation, then moves the deceased contact into this Household.
- This option is not available if the selected individual is the only person in the Household.
- This option is useful for Catholic organizations that need deceased individuals to remain in Households to ensure they stay in their parish of registration.
Reversing the Changes
Did you click Save too soon? Or mark the wrong John Smith as deceased? Don't worry! The Audit Log saves all changes, and you can manually reverse them. Run the User Audit Log Detail report to determine which records the tool updated. A SPoC can contact Support if assistance is needed.