How to manage Individuals and Organisations

Organisations and Individuals within those organisations are already configured in the system using contact tags, titles, roles, sectors of activity etc., 

This includes tags for example - council, clerk, officer, councillor, county association, county officer, member of the board, former clerk, former chair, former officer. 

Depending on your set up you can use these tags to help manage individual contacts and organisations.        

TOP TIP/IMPORTANT TO NOTE

Email addresses cannot be shared – they cannot appear more than once in the system. 

Therefore if you have any clerks who use the email address for multiple councils you will have to advise them they can only access the portal for one of their councils.  

This is based on good practice and reference should be made to the ICO guidance USE THIS LINK.

SET UP OF A COUNCIL (ORGANISATION) IN THE SYSTEM

Here is a screen shot of how a council as an organisation should be set up.  Note that the example demonstrates what should go into each section in relation to address, phone and email address.  For larger councils this will be the town hall but for smaller/medium councils it will often be the clerk’s home address or a PO Box.  The email address for the larger council is likely to be their general enquiry address as the main contact and will be fixed.  Similarly for medium to small councils this will often be the same address as the clerk.  As and when the individual aligned to the address leaves the organisation the email address of the council will be passed onto their successor to manage. 

For larger councils, in addition, often individuals such as deputy clerk, town manager or rfo will have their own individual email addresses but again these are likely to be handed over to a successor and therefore not be archived.

SET UP OF A  INDIVIDUAL (CLERK, OFFICER, ETC IN THE SYSTEM

Here is an example of how a clerk as a individual for the council should be set up.  Make sure the organisation’s address details are up to date as these will migrate across to the new contact you are setting up.  You will, however, need to add:

·         Tag = clerk

·         Role(s) = clerk

·         Job position = clerk/or possibly something else if they have informed you

·         Phone number(s)

·          Email – this is the main email of the council – use the same email as this will have been transferred from the old clerk to the new (in the majority of cases)

·         Add the district (if applicable)

HOW TO MANAGE A CHANGE OF CLERK

When a clerk changes the main email address for the council remains the same – because this is on the council website, in newsletters, on notice boards, magazines etc.  However it is important that the password is reset for the new clerk that is taking over.  Below is the process adopted by Suffolk ALC to manage change in clerk:

• Step 1 – remove portal access to existing clerk, reset their record to former clerk and remove personal information 

• On receipt of notification that the clerk has changed, portal access needs to be reset

• Go to APPS and SETTINGS, filter portal users, search for the clerk and under ACTION select delete and confirm delete. You have now removed portal access for this user but not deleted the contact record. You will see a message on screen:

"Create and manage users that will connect to the system. Users can be deactivated should there be a period of time during which they will/should not connect to the system. You can assign them groups in order to give them specific access to the applications they need to use in the system."

• Return to the contact record and update as follows: 

§  Change the name to “’clerk until 15.10.2021” (this is an interim fix whilst improvements are made to the system)

§  Remove tag for clerk and role of clerk

§  Delete the email address

§  SAVE

You will note that the tag automatically changes to ‘former clerk’.  As a result, the former clerk no longer has access to the portal.  Any confidential enquiries they have raised remain visible to the county association only but are not visible to any other existing or new user of the portal. 

• Step 2 - add details of the new clerk and grant them portal access and send a welcome pack

• Create a new contact card for the new clerk with all relevant details

• Send / create a standard email template using send message

• Go to action button and grant portal access to the new clerk

The new clerk will be able to see all previous enquiries which are not of a confidential nature. 

The confidential enquiries raised by the previous clerk will remain with the now ‘former clerk’ record.