Record a Death
Realm automates much of the process of updating a profile for someone who has passed away. Where we can't update something for you, we'll ask for your input.
A sad chore by its nature, marking a death can sometimes involve so many tasks that you might be afraid of leaving something out. That's why it's best to use the Mark as Deceased feature in Realm. It gives you a list of required changes to a profile. Some updates will be made automatically, and for others, you'll be asked for input.
Marking someone deceased can't be undone. To undo the process, you must manually delete the record then create a new one and add all its information back using the details recorded in the change log.
Once you've completed the Mark Deceased process, here are some profile characteristics you'll notice:
- Status
- Once you mark a congregant deceased, his or her profile status will be displayed as "Deceased" rather than "Active" or "Inactive". While deceased profiles cannot be marked active or inactive, they can be deleted.
- Duplicates
- 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.
- Global searches
- When using the global search (the search box at the top of all pages), profiles of deceased individuals only display for users with permission. When searching on the Profiles page (available only to users with permission, under the Admin menu), be sure to select "All" or "Deceased" if you want to include records for deceased individuals.
- Query searches
- If you ever need to compile a list of those who have passed away, use Custom Queries to search using the best attribute: Individual Status = is deceased or Date of Death.