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Households

A Household is Sacramentum's canonical family grouping. It bundles related People together — a couple, a family with children, multiple generations under one roof — so the parish can see them as one unit for things like bulletin announcements, family-level offerings, and address-of-record updates. Every Household has a display name, an optional address, a primary contact, and a roster of member People.

Households are not the same thing as requesters or login accounts. See Understanding parish records for how Households fit alongside People, requesters, and users.

The households page​

Navigate to Admin Dashboard → People & Places → Households. The page shows every Household record with the following controls:

  • Search — find households by display name.
  • Status filter — show all, or filter to Active, Archived, or Merged.
  • New household — opens the create dialog.
  • Pagination — the list shows 25 records per page.

Each row displays the household's display name, a city / state hint when an address is on file, the primary contact person, the preferred language badge, the member count, source badge, status badge, last updated date, and an actions menu.

Status badges​

StatusColorMeaning
ActiveGreenCurrently maintained household record
ArchivedGrayInactive — kept for history but hidden by default
MergedAmberThis household was merged into another

Source badges​

The source badge tells you how the household record was created:

SourceMeaning
Admin CreatedCreated manually by an administrator
Family ProfileCreated from a household or family registration
ImportedBrought in by a data import
MergedResult of merging other Household records

Viewing a household​

Click the three-dot menu on a household row and select View. The detail dialog shows:

  • Display name at the top.
  • Primary contact, member count, preferred language, and last updated date.
  • Address — line 1 and 2, city, state, postal code, and country, joined into a single readable line.
  • Status and source badges.
  • Notes — free-text canonical notes about this household.
  • Members — a table listing every Person assigned to this household, with their household role (Head, Spouse, Child, Other), contact info, and status badge.

The members table is the fastest way to see who lives at this household and which Person is the head.

Creating a household​

  1. Click New household in the toolbar.
  2. Enter a Display name — required. Most parishes use the family-style form, e.g. The Garcia Family or Bud & Caroline Ederer.
  3. Choose a Preferred language if known — English or Spanish. This influences which language Sacramentum uses for emails and printed correspondence directed at this household.
  4. Pick a Primary contact from the dropdown. The dropdown lists active People; choose the household member who should receive parish communication. You can leave this as None for now and set it later.
  5. Set a Status (typically Active) and a Source (typically Admin Created).
  6. Enter the Address — line 1, line 2, city, state, postal code, and country. All address fields are optional individually but together they make the household findable for visits and mailings.
  7. Add any Notes — household-level reminders that don't belong on an individual Person record.
  8. Click Save.

The new household appears in the list, and you can immediately start assigning People to it from the People page.

Households are usually created automatically

Most household records get created behind the scenes when a parishioner submits a family registration or when an administrator merges family members together on the People page. Manual creation is mainly for situations like adding a household whose members already exist as separate Person records.

Editing a household​

Click the three-dot menu and select Edit. The dialog shows the same fields as the create form. You can update the display name, preferred language, primary contact, source, status, address fields, and canonical notes. Click Save to apply.

Adding and removing members​

Members are managed on the People page rather than on the Household itself. To add a Person to a household, edit that Person and pick the household from their Household dropdown, then assign their Household role (Head, Spouse, Child, Other). To remove someone, edit the Person and clear their household assignment.

The household's Member count updates automatically as Person records are linked or unlinked, and the members table on the household detail dialog refreshes the next time you open it.

Designating the head of household​

The household has a Primary contact field on its own record — that's who receives email correspondence and is shown as the household's main point of contact. Each individual Person also carries a Household role. Setting one Person's role to Head identifies them as the head of household even if a different person is the primary contact (for example, when a spouse handles parish correspondence on behalf of the family).

These two settings answer different questions: Who do we write to? (primary contact) and Who is the canonical head of this household? (role on the Person record).

Merging duplicate households​

Duplicate households happen when the same family is registered through different channels, when an import creates a second record, or when family members independently set up household profiles.

  1. Open the three-dot menu on the household you want to dissolve and click Merge.
  2. Pick the Target household from the dropdown — that's the survivor.
  3. Click Generate preview. Sacramentum computes exactly how many records will be rewritten in each downstream collection (People, Mass intentions, invoices, receipts, memorial offerings, sacrament cases, and so on) and runs invariant checks to confirm no stale references will be left behind.
  4. Review the preview tables — the Rewrite count card shows how many references will move, the Recompute count card shows how many household-derived fields will be refreshed, and the Invariant checks card shows that nothing was missed.
  5. Click Apply merge.
  6. Type MERGE in the confirmation field and apply.

The source household is marked Merged and hidden from active lists. The target household keeps its record and now points to all the People, financial records, and sacrament cases that used to point at the source.

Verify before merging

Household merges cascade across many collections and cannot be automatically undone. Always run the preview first, confirm the rewrite and recompute counts make sense, and only type MERGE when you are confident the right household is surviving.

Archiving households​

When a household is no longer relevant — every member has moved away, the family no longer attends, or the record was created in error — archive it instead of deleting so the historical link from past intentions and offerings is preserved.

  1. Open the three-dot menu on the household and click Archive.
  2. Confirm in the dialog that follows.

The badge changes to Archived and the household is hidden from the default list. Use the Status filter and pick Archived to find archived households later.

Why households matter​

Households tie the system's records together at the family level. When a parishioner submits a Mass intention, the identity-resolution layer can link that intention not just to the Person who paid but to the Household they live in — making it possible to roll up offerings by family, send one bulletin announcement that names the whole household, or print mailing labels for an annual stewardship appeal. See Understanding parish records for the broader picture of how Households connect to People, requesters, and login accounts.

What's next​