The Emergency Contact Information Bug

There’s an old saying that no good deed goes unpunished, and this is one of those times.

What is the Emergency Contact Information Bug?
It’s a glitch in the user interface introduced by developers by accident. Here’s what happened: The original Emergency Contact Information (ECI) screen had a data entry slot for a contact name, address, phone, and cell. The problem was that the address field was only one field, so users had to enter the street address, then press CTRL plus Enter to go to the next line in the same field. This was pretty confusing, since it was the only place in the MRCDB where this happened. The address was stored in a single field (since no mailings would ever go out to emergency contacts). To ‘fix’ the problem, the address field was split up visually to provide a space for the street address then City/State/Zip. Unfortunately, this ‘fix’ actually introduced the bug where once these two pieces of information are entered, they seem to ‘linger’ from member to member. The bug doesn’t affect the record because it’s only on the interface. In other words, it’s a confusing but harmless bug.

When I enter an address in the ECI it ‘sticks’ to the next member. How come?
Because those two fields don’t directly interact with the data tables. The information in those fields is combined and stored in one data field on the member record. When you print out member files, you’ll notice that the information is there, regardless of what it says on screen.

What do I do about it?
Ignore what the fields say when you’re entering data, just overwrite the information to input. It’s only an interface bug; the entered data (overwritten) will be stored correctly. You can verify it by running a member report.  

Why hasn’t it been fixed??
It has been  fixed in the latest version (2.x) and whenever a database is upgraded or refreshed, the bug is fixed automatically. If a database hasn’t been recently worked on (such as for producing ad-hoc reports or other local issues) then it’s likely the bug is still lurking around. Since the bug is annoying but harmless, it doesn’t merit a general upgrade of all the databases.  However, if it's driving you to distraction, contact TDC to make arrangements to exterminate the bug.

Is it the only bug?
So far, yes. This is  the only known bug in the system, which is a pretty good track record. There is a misspelling in the system, but we’re not telling where.