What happens when I archive a contact or child?

The Archived section of the Address Book and Children modules makes it possible for you to temporarily retain key details about people who are no longer actively involved in your organisation. Appropriate use of the archived section might include retaining someone's details when they have gone travelling and intend to return to the organisation or where there is a legal obligation to retain a record of their involvement. When an individual has left the organisation and does not intend to return, you should delete their details rather than archive them.

What happens when you archive a contact or child?

When you archive a contact in the Address Book, the following changes are made to their record:

Address Book module

• The contact's status is changed from 'active' to 'archived' and can be reinstated again if required
• Access to My ChurchSuite is disabled and all contact details are set to hidden in the "Privacy settings" section
• All Tags are removed from the contact (only active contacts can show in Tags). A Changes log is recorded detailing all fixed tags the archived contact is removed from. Fixed tags are not reinstated if the archived contact is reinstated but Smart Tags will if the reinstated contact satisfies the smart tag conditions
• Key Dates, Notes, Custom Fields, communication logs, historic flow tracking and change logs are retained
• The contact is removed from any active Flows they were in process
• The contact will not appear in the results of any reports, except the "Archived Contacts" report (see later in this article)
• Relational links to spouse/partner are retained and the archived contact will show "At this Address" in strikethrough when viewing the profiles of other household members
• Communication Options remain unchanged, although the archived contact will not be included in any recipient list when sending communications nor be visible in My ChurchSuite. Any unsent, previously scheduled emails will continue to be sent - they have already been submitted to the queue pending release at the due date/time
• Links to any ChurchSuite User account are severed but the user account is retained and remains active until set inactive or deleted
• Pending status form invites are deleted but previously received form responses are retained

Children module

• Children remain linked to the archived parent/carer contact

Attendance module

• Contact will no longer appear in the contact list when adding service attendance data
• Past attendance history will be retained

Calendar module

• Contact will be removed from all future events where they have signed up for a free ticket. All historic event sign-ups are retained against the events and remain linked to the archived contact
• If the event is in the future and the ticket is paid for, the sign-up record and payment will be retained and linked to the archived contact
• Past event sign-up history for free and paid-for tickets will be retained against the event and the contact
• Past invites and event check-in attendance history will be retained
• The contact is removed from all instances of being an event overseer

Small Groups module

• Contact is removed from all groups (and any small group roles held)
• Historic group attendance data for the contact is retained across all groups, regardless of whether the group is past or active
• A "Left Group" Key Date is recorded against the contact before it is archived

Rotas module

• Contact is removed from any future dates where they are due to be serving on a rota
• Contact is removed from any ministries they are a member of
• The contact is removed from all instances of being a ministry overseer
• Past dates where the contact has served on a rota are retained
• Contact is removed from historic rota roles held
• A "Left Ministry" Key Date is recorded against the contact before it is archived

Giving module

• The giver is changed from being linked to a contact to being an unlinked ("non-member") giver
• Name, address and email details are copied over from the contact who has been archived

Booking module

• The contact is unlinked from a linked booking customer profile and becomes a "Not in the Address Book" customer profile that continues to be maintained against all past and future bookings
• The contact is removed from all instances of being a booking "Type" or "Resource" overseer
• Payment history for booking charges paid by the archived contact remains intact

My ChurchSuite

• Access to My ChurchSuite is revoked but their password is not deleted. If they are reinstated and set active, they will be able to resume logging in with their original password
• The archived contact ceases to appear in "Search for others"

How to archive a contact or child

There are several places within the Address Book and Children module where users can archive contacts and children individually or in batches. In the examples below, we demonstrate within the Address Book but the methods are broadly similar in the Children module.

1. From the Contacts list in the Address Book, select Archive from the contact Actions:

2. From a contact's Profile, click More and select Archive:

3. You can bulk archive multiple selected contacts using the batch Archive actions on the Contacts list. As you tick one or more contacts in the list, the Actions menu is revealed. Select Archive from the batch actions list. Note that the Contacts list is paginated. Batch actions are performed for the page being viewed and may therefore need to be performed several times across multiple pages. You can use the Advanced Search to further filter the list, reducing the number of pages and therefore the number of times a batch action is run.

When archiving an individual contact, you can also optionally archive linked family members in the same process.

Viewing archived contacts and children

Within the Contacts list, you can easily switch between viewing Active and Archived contacts:

Note: Archived contacts no longer show in reports or search results.

Archived contacts continue to show in the People widget on a contact's profile, shown in strikethrough.

The Archived Contacts and Archived Children reports list all contacts and children who have been archived within a range of dates, showing when they were archived. The report can be further filtered by Key dates, perhaps to filter those who have "Left the church" or are "Deceased", where these events have been marked as key dates.

Reinstating archived contacts and children

While viewing the archived Contacts list in the Address Book, you can reactivate an archived contact by selecting Set as active from the contact Actions:

...or click Set as active from an archived contact's Profile page:

You can also reinstate archived contacts from the Archived Contacts and Archived Children reports.