Introduction to the community

Community concept
The operation of Synergetic is based around the concept of a community. Every person or company that has any relationship to your organisation has a record in the Synergetic community database. This database contains information about each individual in your organisation's community.
The community of people your organisation deals with are all represented within the Synergetic community database as:

• Individual community members with all of their information stored about them.
• Their membership of various constituencies. Constituencies are used to define how an individual relates to your organisation. Because an individual might relate in several ways, they are generally members of many constituencies. For example, they may be a parent (@PC constituency), staff member (@STF constituency) and a debtor (@DEB constituency).
  
  Important Note: There are two types of constituencies within Synergetic: system-defined constituencies and user-defined constituencies. You can create any constituencies that you like to group your community members (for example, school council member). System-defined constituencies all start with @.

• Their relationships with other individuals. Relationships represent how one member of the community relates to another. For example, the community member may be the son or daughter of another.

Community database
The community database maintains:

1. Core personal information. For example:
   • Title, Surname, Given Names, Mail Address, Home Address
   • Contacts: telephone home/business/mobile, facsimile, email
   • Occupations: code, description, employer
   • Flags: primary/partner, deceased.
2. Constituency information. That is, how an individual relates to your organisation. For example:
   • Future parent, current parent, current student, past student
   • Current staff, past staff, foundation member, friend, supplier.
3. Relationship information. That is, how one individual relates to another. For example:
   • mother of / son of
   • brother of / sister of
   • aunt / uncle.

The following diagram shows an overview of the community database and shows how the different areas of your organisation's operations interact with the Synergetic community.