Question

Photo of David Leigh

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What is the effect of the "Mailing" and "Map Location" checkboxes associated with a Family Address?

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I couldn't find anything in the documentation about this, and I'd appreciate some clarification on what behaviour these checkboxes affect.
In what circumstances should these options be checked/unchecked?

At present, I am using the "Mailing" checkbox to indicate that the person has opted to receive postal mail at this address. If they do not wish to receive mail, I leave this option unchecked.

However, the Report Field "Person.Address" only shows an address of the specified type (ie. "Home") if that address has the "Mailing" option checked (as opposed to just "Map Location"). Is this intentional, and if so can someone please explain the reasoning behind this? I would expect Person.Address field to display the first-listed address of the specified type regardless of what other options were set for that address.

Can anybody shed some light on this?

  • Photo of David Turner

    1

    Yes, the address that has the 'Map Location' flag set is what is used anytime that family's location needs to be plotted on a map (independent of a specific location). Currently this includes the various group maps and the 'Distance From' report filter.

    The 'Mailing' flag is used to indicate what addresses should recieve mail. However, This is primarily to support future funcationaiity (i.e. mailing lables), as we have not yet written any code that uses this flag. There are some places that we currently just use the Home address when we should probably also be checking the 'Mailing' flag. Once we 'circle the globe' and get all the core funcationality completed, we will revisit those places in code that use address to make sure that we're using this flag correctly.

    • David Leigh

      David Leigh

      Ok, thanks for the explanation. With regard to my specific problem, does this mean that the Report Field "Person.Address" should actually display the first-listed address of the specified type regardless of whether the "Mailing" or "Map Location" flags are set?

    • Photo of Arran France

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      This commit explains a little bit more 6aa1c1f7ad1cb3b1bd4dee8c8f6758ff9ba2f1ba

      • David Leigh

        David Leigh

        Thanks, but as far as I can tell, this commit simply ensures that one and only one address is set as the "Map Location". I'm interested in an explanation of what this actually means and what Rock behavior is influenced by this flag. Also, I don't see any mention of the "Mailing" flag in this commit, which is actually more relevant to the particular scenario that is troubling me.

        • Arran France

          Arran France

          I'm not sure on the mailing flag.
          What I understand (from the commit) that the map flag does is indicate which address should be the address that is mapped when you click on the map indicator on the family bar, which I guess is an indicator that it's the primary address?

          • David Leigh

            David Leigh

            Well, I guess that's what I would like to know - does it actually mean "primary address", and if so, in what other areas might that be significant in Rock. Conversely, what exactly is a "non-Map Location"? Again, the reason I ask for clarification is because I'm not sure if the behavior I observed in the Person.Address report field is expected, so it would be good to get some clarity around the exact purpose of these flags.

          • Photo of Robert Frisone

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            Just a guess, but maybe a map address is a physical location that can be mapped out, and a mailing address is one that the individual recieves mail at. For instance, a P.O. box would be a mailing address but not a map address while that same individual may have a home address that they don't wish to recieve mail at. I'm not sure of the significance of this difference in Rock other than just having the information available.

            • David Leigh

              David Leigh

              Thanks Robert, your definitions are exactly the behavior I expected... but I'm starting to think "Map Location" must indicate not just a mappable address, but also "the primary address to show on a map" as there can be only one per Family (whereas a Previous Address might also be map-able address). Mailing Address also seems to have more effect than I thought - I assumed it would only impact on the Communications features, but the results of the Person.Address report field have me wondering what other impact this flag might have also. I guess if no one can clarify this, I'll just have to dig around in the code myself and try to figure it out.

            • Photo of Brandon Gamache

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              I think you both are correct (Robert and David). I know the mapped address is also used for the Group Map. I'm not sure what all Mailing Address is currently used for besides communications but I know it could be used more in the future for trying to place people in small groups based on their proximity to small group hosts/homes. Maybe mailing campaigns based on proximity to the church, event location or desired location. Could be using in reports, as you mentioned, if you wanted to find the meeting location for each small group or specific groups. 

              I suppose you could think of the mappable address option as the primary (at least as far as mapping goes). I'm not sure why a previous address (or any address other than the primary) would need to be mapped. I guess if you have a family that has two homes (maybe a summer and winter, or weekday and weekend homes) you could map both but in order to do that you will need to go into the database and set the desired addresses that way, though one should still be chosen as the primary address type.