Contacts FAQ

Question: What are households?

Answer: See diagram above.  A household is essentially a family. Think of a household as students and contacts that reside at the same dwelling as a family. The household is what ties students, contacts, and dwellings together.

Question: Can a student have multiple addresses for both a dwelling and a mailing address?

Answer: Yes. The dwelling address is created when a contact is added. After the dwelling address is added, click the Actions drop down menu and select ‘Add Mailing Address’.

Question: Can a student have more than one primary contact?

Answer: A student can only have one primary contact per household. If the student is linked to multiple households, the student can be linked to one primary contact per household.

Question: Can a student have more than one household?

Answer: Yes, a student can be linked to multiple households. Think about a student with divorced parents. This will typically lead to two households for the student. One household with mom and another household with dad.

Question: Are students linked to siblings?

Answer: Yes and no. Students are not directly linked to siblings. However, students are linked to “households”. When students are a part of the same household, they are considered siblings.

Question: When creating a contact, the ‘Relationship’ list is limited. Can we add to the list?

Answer: The contact relationship list is customizable. If you are missing options, they can be added via Code Management. You need to notify your Illuminate project leader.

Question: What are the icons next to an address? (see screenshot above)

Answer: Map/Chart – indicator that the address needs to be verified.

    Star – student’s primary residence

    Envelope – student’s mailing address

Question: On the student contact summary page, why do some addresses appear and others do not?

Answer: When editing a contact, if the option ‘Resides With’ is selected, the contact and full address will appear on the contact summary page. If ‘Resides With’ is not selected, then only basic contact info will show (e.g. name, type, phone).

Question: When creating an enrollment record, what happens to the student address info?

Answer: The address information saves to the student contact page. You can link the address to a contact and create a household by going to Student Contacts and entering the necessary information.

Question: On the contact summary screen, why are some addresses Red and others Black?

Answer: Red = an address that has not been validated via USPS database.

    Black = an address has been USPS validated and formatted.

There are two ways to verify an address: 1) On the contact summary screen, select the ‘Actions’ menu and then select ‘Verify Address’. 2) When creating a contact and entering an address. Select the checkbox ‘Verify Address’.

Question: What does the address suggestion menu mean/do when I'm entering/typing an address? See screenshot above.

Answer: This list pulls from you district's current database of addresses. It is meant to be a shortcut to completing the address. This does not link to households or siblings. That happens further down the screen.  If the address you need to enter is suggested, select it to avoid duplicates in the database.

Question: How do I run a Mailing Address list?

Answer: Go to Reports – Student Reports – Student List. Select the appropriate students. In the section ‘Columns’, select ‘Mailing Address’.

Note:  Contacts will only appear in the report if the "Receives Mailing" option has been checked for the contact in the the Contact Information section.

Question: How do I link a student to a household/sibling?

Answer: 1) When adding a new address to a contact/person, if the address you enter matches an existing Household, an option will be provided to link to that Household. See Screenshot above.

2) For managing Households for existing contacts, it is best to merge those Households using our Household Merge tool. This is an admin function. See How Contacts Relate to District Admin Tools below and contact your district lead for assistance.

Question: How do contacts relate to the parent portal?

Answer: Contacts directly impact the parent portal. A change to contact information could change how a parent experiences the portal. Here are a few guidelines:

1) It is best for contact to be thoroughly ‘cleaned’ before enabling the portal (see admin tools below).  

2) Changing contact names will impact the portal.  

3) Changing legal guardianship will impact if a contact can access a student on the portal.

4) A contact’s email address in Illuminate is not linked a parent’s email address in the portal. These are intentionally separate (e.g. a parent’s email address on the portal is tied to their secure account that they create when registering for the portal).

Question: What contact info must be completed to use the parent portal?

Answer: In order for parents to access students successfully in the portal, a few tasks should be performed:

1) Parents who are legal guardians must receive the Legal Guardian flag.

2) The Duplicate Contact tool should be run and all possible duplicate contacts merged. 3) The Household Merger tool must be run and all disassociated merged.

Question: What does the Household Merge tool do?

Answer: The household merge tool gives you the opportunity to combine multiple households into one.  Many times during contact imports too many households may be inadvertently created. The household merge tool helps to identify contacts who share name and address information and merge them into one household. By putting these households together, siblings are also tied together.

Question: What does the Duplicate Contact tool do?

Answer: A contact might have been entered in the system twice. For example, John Smith may have been entered for his son Dave and his daughter Susie. Though in both cases John Smith is the same person, the system may in fact see them as two different people. Matching off of contact name and address or phone, the duplicate contact tool provides the opportunity to merge a multi-entry contact into a single contact. Merging the contacts will ensure that the data remains “relational”.

See other lessons within the "Contacts" manual for guidance in related tasks.