This article explains where the email address and phone number used by the Communication module come from in a family's record, and what happens when that information is missing.
Two Places Contact Info Can Live
Contact info in Family Directory is stored at two separate levels, and they don't automatically match each other:
- Family level: the Email Address and Primary Phone fields on the family's Family Details tab.
- Member level: the Email ID, Cell Phone, and Home Phone fields (among others) on the Contact sub-tab of an individual member's Member Details.
A family can have contact info at the family level, the member level, both, or neither. Updating one does not update the other.
See Contact Info From the Family List
- From the left navigation menu, select Family Directory, then Family List.
- The E-Mail Address and Primary Phone columns show each family's family-level contact info.
- A blank cell means that family has no contact info entered at the family level.
Check Family-Level Contact Info
- Select a family to open its record.
- On the Family Details tab, look under Personal Details for Email Address and Primary Phone.
- If these fields are empty, the family has no contact info at the family level, even if individual members do.
Check Member-Level Contact Info
- Select the Member Details tab.
- Select the member's card.
- Select the Contact sub-tab.
- This shows that member's own Email ID, Home Phone, Cell Phone, Work Phone, Fax, and Pager. These fields belong to the member, not the family, so each member in a family can have different contact info.
Note: A member's contact fields can be empty even when the family has contact info on file, and can be filled in even when the family-level fields are empty. The two are entered and stored independently.
What This Means for Sending Messages
If the contact info Communication needs isn't on file for a recipient, that recipient won't receive the message. For text messages, Communication shows a warning during recipient selection when a selected recipient has no phone number on file. To fix a missing email address or phone number, add it to the family's Family Details tab or the relevant member's Contact sub-tab in Family Directory.
Updated