Note:  The Gift/Bio Department checks the Southern Illinoisan, as well as other local newspapers, daily for obituaries.  If you find an obituary on one of these papers, rest assured that Louise Bratzel has probably already located it.

When learning of a death through a variety of sources (mail, phone call, obituary, memorial gifts, etc.), you should initiate a routing slip if any of the following conditions apply:

If the person has an unfulfilled gift pledge (GPTI), then check to see if the person is spoused.  If the person has a surviving spouse, then leave the pledge alone in case the spouse wants to fulfill it.  If there is no surviving spouse, route to Linda Wright, Gift Processing.  (Do not route to Linda if the pledge is closed or has been written off.)  If the death occurred before 07/01/98, run XGIV.  If there are gifts on XGIV, attach it to the routing slip and route to Linda.  If there are no gifts on XGIV, do not route to Linda.  If the person has been credited with a gift after their date of death, check GPDI to see if they were given hard or soft credit.  If hard credit was given, the gift will need to be corrected.  If only soft credit was given, the gift should stay as is and the person does not need to be routed.

If the person is currently assigned to a development officer, (MPTI) then be sure to notify Al, Annie, or Twyla in Research so that the assignment can be moved or cancelled.

If you have an obituary for the person, complete the DEC procedure and send the obituary to Louise Bratzel for entry.

Please note:  The Alumni Association will not be processing routing slips for any death of a  non-association member.  When a staff member from the alumni association learns of a death they will check the individual's membership status.  If the person is a member, the Alumni membership processing staff will follow the routing procedures.  If not, the information will be routed to Laurie Bell who will then follow the routing procedures.

If you have no obituary and the person is not a member of the Alumni Association and the person does not have an unfulfilled gift pledge, complete the DEC procedures yourself. You do not need to initiate a routing slip in this situation.

You need to check information on the following screens (you can first check MPSI to see if there is any activity on any of these screens):
 

**Before you begin the deceasing process, first check that the person is not business linked to his or her employment record.  You can check this on the PRI screen for the person or the CFC screen for his or her employing corporation.  If there is a business link (or any other corporate contact) then first follow the procedures for historying a contact.  When an individual and their spouse are business linked to a company, and the individual dies, the spouse record will remain business linked.

Note that Trusts/Estates are exceptions to this.  See Business Links with Estate/Trust Gifts.**
 

1.     At the main menu, type DEC and press ENTER.  A blank Deceased Information screen will be displayed.  At the Memorial Look Up prompt, type the deceased's name or ID#  and choose the correct record from Person Resolution screen.

2.    The individual's name will appear in the header.  Fill in the following fields if the information is known.

#1 Deceased Date: Date of death.  Use the MM/DD/YYYY format.  When a date is entered here, Adam will perform the following operations automatically:

a) The status changes to "D" for deceased
b) All addreses become former addresses
c) The spouse becomes a widow or widower
d) All employment becomes former employment

If the deceased date is unknown, leave this blank. Adam will perform the same operations as when there is a deceased date.

#2 Status: Adam automatically fills in this field.

#4 Preferred Name:

1. If there is a surviving spouse listed in the obituary, enter that person as NOK.  If the spouse listed in the obituary is still living and is not on our database, then add that person as the spouse before deceasing the person.  However, if the spouse listed in the obituary is already deceased, then do not add that spouse. (Treat it as "no spouse listed" and see #2 below.)

2. If there is no spouse listed in the obituary and we do not have a spouse listed on ADAM, then do not list a NOK unless there is someone listed as a relative on REL on ADAM. (If a releative other than surviving spouse is put as NOK on DEC, then delete field #12 Notification Code on the NKE screen.)

3. If there is no spouse listed in the obituary (this refers to a short obituary that just doesn't list the person's relatives), but we do have a spouse listed on ADAM, then leave the couple married when the person is deceased but do not list the spouse as NOK.

4. If there are many relatives listed in the obituary, but it just doesn't list the spouse, but we have a spouse on ADAM, go ahead and leave the couple married when the person is deceased.  However, instead of listing the spouse as NOK, choose the closes relative listed in the obituary and put that person up as NOK.  (If a releative other than surviving spouse is put as NOK on DEC, then delete field #12 Notification Code on the NKE screen.)

Once the name or ID# has been entered, benefactor will detail onto the NKE screen.  Correspondence Control will add default values to the following fields on  NKE:

#12 Notification Code: Sends a letter.
#13 Condolence Code: Sets format and content of letter.

Be sure to delete these codes for anyone other than the surviving spouse or the next of kin individual.  The acknowledgment only goes to the next of kin person, not all relatives.  In cases where the spouse is not named as NOK, please make note of this in field #5 on the DEC screen.

Click Finish, then OK to exit NKE and return to the DEC screen.

#5 Obituary Information:

*Note: Obituaries should always be routed to Louise Bratzel for scanning and entry into the system.

The first line of the field should have the date of entry in the MM/DD/YYYY format.
The second line of the field should have the name of the entry operator.

Next, enter free text of obituary information. We should always include the source (i.e., Southern Illinoisan 12/28/98) as well as the full text of the obituary.  WordPerfect can be used for this purpose.  To get into WordPerfect from Datatel, press the F2 (Detail) key twice from field #5 Obituary Information and then at the prompt enter a 'W'.  To use spell check while in WordPerfect, press Esc and =.  The cursor will move to the menu bar at the top of  the screen.  Use the arrow keys  to move the cursor to Tools and to select Spell Check.  To save the information and exit WordPerfect, press F12 and F.  To exit without saving, press F7.

If there is no obituary information, do some research at arrangeonline.com, the Social Security Death Index, or try to find a newspaper website with obituaries.  If you still cannot find an obituary, enter into field #5 Obituary Information the information explaining why the individual is being deceased.  Include the entry date (MM/DD/YYYY format) as line one and your name as line two.  Sometimes the deceased date and the next of kin is unknown; this information should be included here.  Include a line indicating when and where the information was obtained from.

3.    A final prompt (Y/N) will ask you if you are sure you want to decease this person. Please be sure this is the correct person you want to decease!

4.    Check the individual's SRK screen for the notation "Research File Exists."  If there is a research file, please notify someone in the Research department (Al, Annie, Abigail, or Twyla) so that the file can be modified to reflect the deceased status.

Last update:  12/09/04