What would you like to know more about?

Mark Deceased

Mark a profile "Deceased" to let Realm walk you through the process of transitioning these records.

  • You'll need the Mark as Deceased permission among your responsibilities. For more information, see Responsibilities.
Note:

Marking admins and resolving duplicates

If you have only one person with the Administrator responsibility, Realm will not allow them to be marked deceased. You'll need to give another person administrator rights first.

If a record could be a duplicate, Realm prompts you to resolve the issue before continuing the process of marking deceased. You should complete the merge process first since you may not be able to mark someone deceased if they have a duplicate record

  1. Locate and open the record you want to edit.
  2. Next to the individual's name, click the ellipsis icon and select Mark as Deceased.
  3. Review the list of changes to be made. Required items must be filled in. Optional items can be. The remainder cannot be changed.
  4. When you reach Email Message, select or clear the check box.
    • Clear the check box if you don't want to send any email notifications.
    • Select the check box to send emails to the appropriate people. The email to users with group management rights will include the status of the congregant's group memberships. Users with pathways management rights will be notified about the status of his or her pathways, and so on. Click Edit to change the message.
  5. When you're satisfied with the changes and all required fields have entries, click Continue.
  6. When the confirmation message displays, ensure the information is correct. Remember, this step cannot be undone. When you're sure, click Permanently Mark as Deceased.

Mark Deceased Field Descriptions

Details on some of the fields you'll encounter when marking a profile deceased.

Death Information
Date of death will appear both on the individual's profile and under their photo in the family section of family members' profiles. You can use the Date of death unknown check box without a date, or with a partial date.
System Information

If this individual has no login, you will not see the text explaining their "account status".

If this individual is tied to logins at multiple Realm sites, the account will only be marked deceased for this one. Eventually, if all sites mark this individual as deceased, the account can no longer be accessed by any congregant at any site.

Personal Information
Only users with the Profile Alert permission in their responsibilities will see or be able to change the setting for the deceased's profile alert.
Family Information
This section will only be displayed if the individual's household contains two living primary members (head, spouse, and so on).
Groups
Once you mark a congregant deceased, group leaders will see the deceased date of that congregant on the group participant screens.
Posts and Messages
This section is displayed whether the individual had an account or not. It also displays whether or not they had posts or messages.
Giving Numbers
If this individual was the sole owner of a giving number, the number will remain on his or her record until an administrator removes it. If a giving number is shared, the spouse will keep the giving number and all shared gifts.
Recurring Gifts
The individual's recurrences will automatically deactivate.
Pledges
The administrator will have the option to forgive a pledge or mark it incomplete. All shared pledges will continue as-is.
Giving Statements
If gifts are not shared, a statement will print for this individual if he or she gave within the statement's date range. If shared, the statement will belong solely to the spouse.
Registration Events
The event coordinator will receive an alert when someone registered for an event is marked as deceased. This congregant also won't be listed as a family option to other family members for future event registration.
Email Message
While you can edit the email sent using the Edit button, doing so will only save your changes for this one instance of marking someone deceased. The next time you use this page, it will default to the "Mark as Deceased" email contained on the System Emails page. To make permanent changes, update the contents there.
When Administrators and users with responsibilities will be notified is selected, the individual notified must have the Mark as Deceased responsibility to receive an email. Other conditions when an email is sent to non-admins:
  • A giving staff member with the View Giving Summary responsibility will receive an email if the profile marked as deceased has a giving number, shared giving, recurring giving, or pledges set up.
  • A pathways staff member with the Manage Pathways responsibility will receive an email if the profile marked as deceased is in a pathway.
  • A ministry area staff member with the Manage Ministry Areas responsibility will receive an email if the profile marked as deceased is a leader in a group or ministry area.