Employee Accounts or Group Members vs Related Contacts

We often receive questions regarding Employee Accounts and Related Contacts: what’s the difference? This article aims to clear up any confusion between those two different contact types.

Employee Accounts or Group Members

• Employee Accounts or Group Members are members.
• Employee Accounts or Group Members are members that do not manage the membership in any way but have access to the Member Portal and Member Benefits.
• Think of Employee Accounts or Group Members as simply ‘Group Members.’ It is just the term used to differentiate between a group’s Primary Contact, who is the owner of the membership and manages the roles. 

For more information on Employee Accounts or Group Members and for tips on working with them in Member365, consult this Knowledge Base article.

Related Contacts

• Related Contacts may or may not be members.
• When Contacts are added to your system, there is a field to enter their ‘Organization Name.’ Organizations are added to your system when Contacts sign up with an Organization name.
• Every Organization in your copy of Member365 has a Related Contacts list. This list checks Contact Records for the ‘Organization Name’ field that matched the Organization Record.
• Contacts whose profiles share an Organization Name will be Related Contacts for each other and the corresponding Organization.
• That one field in the Contact Record is the only criterion determining whether someone is a Related Contact. Your users can be Related Contacts for each other and their Organizations, regardless of their Membership status. 
• You can have a related contact that is not an Employee for the membership on the Organization Record.

For more information on Related Contacts, continue reading here.

Congratulations, you now know the difference between Employee Accounts and Related Contacts!