Unit Affiliation
What It Is
A unit affiliation records where a member belongs within the association’s structure during one membership period. It connects the term to a chapter, section or another allowed unit and dates that connection. A member can hold several chapter connections during the same period, with separate spans and primary choices rather than one chapter value repeatedly overwritten.
The affiliation retains the unit category, entry source and any continuation from an earlier connection. Where the connection was purchased, it also carries a dues product and order-line reference. These details make a chapter move explainable and help distinguish a deliberate new choice from a connection carried into the next period.
What It Is Not
A CRM affiliation connects a person to an organization, such as an employer. Membership’s affiliation connects a term to the association’s own organizational unit. A separately sold chapter program can instead establish an identity-bound membership; that holding has its own periods. The unit’s name, hierarchy and dues configuration remain the structure module’s records.
How It Is Used
Staff select units when recording a term and can later add, end or transfer connections. A renewal without explicit choices can inherit eligible connections from the preceding period. Officers perform permitted changes within their grants and can see a member’s other connections marked as outside their scope.
Rosters use effective connections to identify members on a chosen day, including units below a selected parent where requested. A normal addition or transfer into a dues-charging unit requires the purchase workflow. A unit merge follows its own transactional rules, preserving closed history and moving or resolving open connections. Some merge paths leave primary selection unresolved, so staff should not assume every member necessarily has a primary after a merge.
Its Facets
Unit and unit type. The selected unit and its category determine which configured requirements apply. Live affiliation entry checks that the unit can accept the connection.
Span. Start and end days describe the effective connection within the term. Ending a connection before it begins can withdraw it, subject to retained transfer lineage.
Primary. Unless multiple primaries are allowed, there can be at most one effective primary of a category on a day. That upper limit does not itself guarantee that a primary exists.
Source and lineage. Staff entry, application choice, inheritance and transfer explain how the affiliation arose. A transfer refers back to the connection it continues.
Dues line. Purchased affiliations retain the dues reference used by scoped financial summaries. An ordinary chapter change cannot silently supply the dues purchase it requires.
Unit rules. Program rules and package overrides determine eligible categories and counts. Maximum checks cover the term, while minimum checks begin from the operation’s effective day. Stored portal settings are not yet an operational member editor.
Scope marker. A visible membership can show connections beyond the officer’s grants. The marker separates visibility of those facts from permission to alter them.
Roster rule. The workspace can keep grace members visible to officers through their last effective units. Unit-filtered lists and exports currently have a recorded consistency gap in applying that choice.
How It Relates
The term supplies the containing period, and the membership supplies the owner. The structure supplies units and their ancestors. Commerce supplies purchased dues references. Historical reconstruction and monthly snapshots use dated affiliations alongside the historical tree, while only selected affiliation operations publish remote business events.
What It Could Become
The product should settle how reports choose among permitted multiple primaries and how merges preserve a useful primary connection. It should also complete member-controlled chapter changes, migration entry and purchased mid-term moves. Changes that repair existing affiliations after configuration is tightened need a deliberate policy rather than being blocked by historical violations.