Tech Forum

What are best practices for phone numbers in the following situations:
1. Single member, head of household with only a cellphone.
2. Couple with no household number but two cellphones.

Is it best to always have a household number (reuse a cell), or to just leave it blank?
Same question with the email address.

At least in the past, individual information would be left off some lists. Is this mostly corrected?

krampster wrote:What are best practices for phone numbers in the following situations:
1. Single member, head of household with only a cellphone.
2. Couple with no household number but two cellphones.

Is it best to always have a household number (reuse a cell), or to just leave it blank?

There are still several reports where only a household number is displayed (e.g., Abbreviated Directory or Household Reports). But as far as I can tell, in all those reports, if the household number is blank, the head of household's individual number will be used. So you should be able to leave the household number blank in both the situations you mentioned (as long as you are okay with the HoH's individual number being automatically selected when the household number is blank).

krampster wrote:Same question with the email address.

Same answer.

krampster wrote:At least in the past, individual information would be left off some lists. Is this mostly corrected?

No, but I don't know if I would use the word "corrected". There's usually a choice between how much space is used for a report and how much information is available. It may well be a reasonable choice to leave off individual numbers on some reports. For example, the Abbreviated Directory of Members wouldn't be particularly "abbreviated" if it had to contain three phone numbers for every household. So it only lists one number -- the household number (which, if blank, will be replaced by the HoH's individual number as I mentioned above).

And note that on reports that concern individuals (as opposed to households), the individual number will always be used if present, but if not, the household number will be used.

krampster wrote:What are best practices for phone numbers

Realize that you are forgetting about:
3: Family with phone still wired to wall, with individual cell phones for all, but wishes you call family phone first, to save cell minutes

Maybe someone knows the answer to this one. I haven't found the time to test it:

A part member family: The wife is a member, the husband is not.

RussellHltn wrote:Maybe someone knows the answer to this one. I haven't found the time to test it:

A part member family: The wife is a member, the husband is not.

That's not a different case. All the rules I explained above still apply.

If the husband is in the household, then he is the HoH, and the HoH rules apply to him.

If he has not been added to the household, then she is the HoH, and the HoH rules apply to her.

kisaac wrote:Realize that you are forgetting about:
3: Family with phone still wired to wall, with individual cell phones for all, but wishes you call family phone first, to save cell minutes

At first, this seems quite straightforward -- just put the landline number in the household phone number field. That will work great for every report that includes household phone numbers, even if it also includes individual numbers (such as the Directory of Members).

The problem is that all the reports that are oriented to individuals will list the individual numbers, and not the household number. But there's no practice I know of that will solve that issue, short of removing all the individual phone numbers -- but then they are gone from the system entirely, and can't be used as a backup contact number.

aebrown wrote:At first, this seems quite straightforward --
The problem is that all the reports that are oriented to individuals will list the individual numbers, and not the household number. But there's no practice I know of that will solve that issue, short of removing all the individual phone numbers -- but then they are gone from the system entirely, and can't be used as a backup contact number.

Correct! This case would require a different system then the church has chosen. In my case, we've remove the individual contact numbers, so people once again began calling the home phone again.

kisaac wrote:In my case, we've remove the individual contact numbers, so people once again began calling the home phone again.

Assuming that's the member's preference.

What seems to be missing is the ability to designate the preferred contact order. (Which could be different by individual.)

RussellHltn wrote:Assuming that's the member's preference.

What seems to be missing is the ability to designate the preferred contact order. (Which could be different by individual.)

Yes, I should have specified. "In my case" -I meant for my family. With the lack of ability to specify a calling order, we had input the cell phone numbers, then removed them again. We were frustrated when sitting around the kitchen table, next to the phone on the wall, when the cell phone went off to ask about my home teaching for the month. I don't have an unlimited plan, and those extra minutes cost me. I didn't mind being called by cell if I'm out, just call the home phone first. The directory can't specify this type of request. It would require a "primary, secondary" option, rather than the "Home, personal" selection the church chose.