Tip #28 - The 'Prevent Mailing' Feature in SmartAdvocate

In addition to the usual name, address, phone number, etc. that you will find on an individual’s contact card, there are also provisions for Date of Death, a Sub-Category to designate ‘Adult,’ ‘Deceased,’ ‘Incompetent’ and ‘Minor’ and a check boxes for ‘Prevent Mailing.’[Please note that in this article we will be using the terms ‘Minor’ and ‘Infant’ interchangeably. In prior versions of SmartAdvocate the designation ‘Infant’ was used. This is being changed to ‘Minor’].

The meaning of the designations and labels themselves are pretty straightforward, but let’s take a closer look at some additional functionalities of Date of Birth, Date of Death, Prevent Mailing and the Sub-Categories (specifically Deceased, Incompetent and Minor).

If a Date of Birth is entered on the contact card and SmartAdvocate calculates that the person is under 18 years of age, the system will automatically flag that person as an Infant (and will show an ‘I’ in parentheses next to the person’s name). Similarly, if a Date of Death is entered, the system will put a ‘D’ in parentheses next to the person’s name. (Entering a Date of Death will also cause the system to change the Sub-Type to ‘Deceased’).

In both circumstances where the person is either designated as an infant or deceased, the Prevent Mailing feature is activated, regardless of whether the ‘Prevent Mailing’ check box is checked. So, if you try to generate a letter address to an Infant, for example, the default dialog box displayed prior to the document being generated will show ‘(Infant)’ in red next to the name and the ‘Generate,’ ‘Generate & Close’ and ‘Check Merge Codes’ buttons will be inactive (i.e., greyed out).

SmartAdvocate gives you the option of overriding the ‘Prevent Mailing’ feature with a check box which must be clicked before the ‘Generate,’ etc. buttons will become available.

The appropriate ‘red warning’ will display next to the name based on the entries (i.e., DOD entered will show ‘(Deceased),’ if the Sub-Category ‘Incompetent’ is selected ‘(Incompetent)’ will be displayed, etc.

If the ‘Prevent Mailing’ check box is checked on the contact card, the designation ‘(Prevent Mailing Enabled)’ will display on the generate dialog box when you try to generate a letter addressed to that individual.

It is not necessary to check the ‘Prevent Mailing’ check box on the contact card for the Prevent Mailing feature to be active when the individual is a Minor, is Deceased or flagged Incompetent (Sub-Category).

There may be situations where you may want to have an individual designated as “Prevent Mailing” even though that person does not fit any of the other categories, i.e., Infant, Deceased, Incompetent. It may be a client, for example, who have given specific instructions that she does not wish to receive unsolicited mail from your firm. Since the Mass Update feature (see Tip-Of-The-Week from 02/25/2019) allows you to generate mailing lists or send communications in bulk (email, text, documents), the ‘Prevent Mailing’ designation (separate and apart from Infant, Deceased, etc.) allows you to generate a list without those contacts.