I’ve been thinking about this, and it’s actually a bit duplicative the way I have it set up right now…when I first started, the concept of “relationships” wasn’t yet there, so the marital status dropdown was the only way to indicate their status, but it couldn’t store who they were married to or anything reciprocal like that. However, the introduction of relationships provided a much more intelligent and powerful way of representing these things. So, I’m not sure if tying the anniversary to the marital status menu would be the right place (I’m not even sure if the menu should remain at all…what do you think?), but instead within the relationships area so the anniversary could be recorded for both spouses, etc. Perhaps it could function like you mentioned, where if a spousal relationship is set up in the relationships area, the anniversary field shows up or is activated. Let me know what you think…the anniversary date would actually be associated with the spousal relationship record, rather than the two people individually.

As for treating the anniversaries like birthdays rather than “special dates” like baptisms makes perfect sense, I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks!

Actually, the field “marital status” in the section “Extra Info” really is not all about marital status. It is “Relational Status”. As I look at the flow of the page, perhaps a good location for relational status is at the bottom [removed from Extra Info]. Simply remove it from the top completely and let the back end do the work. If they have filled out the field “this person is married to…”. then the anniversary date field should appear, the database should be told the status of “married” and both records updated.

Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m thinking too…the “marital status” field in the extra info section is pretty much a vestigial remain after the relationships were added. I’m going to try to get a little bit more feedback before I completely remove the original menu, but I think that’s the right way to go since it can all be determined from the relationships on the back end.

There are some relationships at the top of the form that are not in the bottom relationship sections: roommate & widow for example. However, I am not sure if other people are using those fields. If it is removed I am wondering if the anniversary date is just a permanent field near the birthday field?

So I'm a bit torn on what to do about the "marital status" menu and its place alongside the actual relationships that can be built. The reason I'm torn is because a) some of the churches are using it, and b) it allows for the status to be imported easily from other apps. The richer relationships that can be created with Stafftool isn't really something that can be easily imported from something else, while the marital status items are pretty standard across other apps...

As for the anniversary date, I'm still torn about providing a more general purpose "special dates" function where other things could be stored as well (baptism date, baby dedication date, graduation date, etc) or having the anniversary date be automatically provided if a marriage relationship is set up. I'm going to try to gather a bit more feedback.

Toby, the marital status makes sense for the import, for export I assume it would not be an issue. However, on import they are required to add relationships if they want their family view and directory to work. So what has it gained by having this field? The only program FUNCTION that I see is the ability to use is as a smart group filter. As for other churches using it... that is a much bigger issue! I am new... so I have a newbie slant on things 8-)

I was thinking about the flow of the anniversary date a bit. IF the goal is to automatically update the spouse record with the date then it makes sense that the relationship would need to be established first. If the anniversary is visible BEFORE the relationships are established would there be a problem creating the link?

• If the date was there and the relationship NOT there, then when the relationship is established the code would have to be able to search and see if that date field is filled out and then populate the record accordingly. This would have to be a two way search: current record and spousal record.
• If the relationship is set up first and then the date appears there is already a connect. The fact that is appears and is blank means that the data does not exists in the spousal record and therefor must be copied there are well. If the date is filled out after the fact, it would not be any different... the spousal record gets copied over. If the date is changed, the same.
• If the anniversary date is part of a special dates section then BOTH of the above codes are needed, and it is probably the only special date that requires this type of functionality.

Yeah, I think you're probably right - spousal relationships and anniversary dates are pretty tightly coupled...it would be difficult to keep them separated since they rely on the relationship being established between the two people. So I'll experiment with some ways of integrating the two in the interface and automatically applying the anniversary to them. It might be kind of weird though...the date might have to be applied to the relationship itself, and not the people, since it really applies to the concept of their marriage and not either person individually...also, we wouldn't want two anniversary dates to show up on the calendar if each person received an anniversary "special date" event...so I'll see what that would entail. Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful feedback as usual Mike :)

I had not thought about the anniversary showing up in the calendar two times... good catch! ASSUMING that every establishes a primary contact for each household, the anniversary date could be polled from that person. HOWEVER, if they did not assign a primary contact then the date would not show up at all. 

Another way the anniversary function could be used is to contact people after they have been at the church for 1/6/12 months. ie. to send them a letter, letting them know they've been at the church for 1/6/12 months, and it's great to still have them along.

Steven, I think this thread has been pretty specific about the marriage anniversary. The idea you bring up is a good one...  and helps a church keep UP with their people. This ads function and purpose beyond just a database. I like it. Perhaps you should start this as a new topic and see what other user think (I think it will get a lot more notice as it's own topic)