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Joe LaPointe

Problem Assigning Roles to a Principal

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I'm running TMG 8.08 on 64 bit Windows 7 Pro computer. According to Help, I should be able to assign a Principal in a Burial Tag to a role. Whenever I attempt to assign a role to the Principal, I get the error message "This person is already a Principal or Witness". Any suggestions how to fix the problem? Is Help wrong?

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I am doing this very often without problems.

 

What are you doing exactly to get this message? Note that the person may appear only once at top left of the entry form of the tag (either as principal or assigned a role) or as a witness.

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Hi Helmut,

 

The way you asked your question solved my problem. I was assigning a person as a principal then attempting to also assing a role. My problem is solved.

 

Thanks for your assistance.

 

Joe

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Joe,

 

You can assign Roles to people entered as Principals - use the drop-down box to the left of the ID# - which by default shows the Role of "Principal."

 

It sounds like you were trying to assign the same person as both a Principal and as a Witness. As you found, you can't do that. But both people entered as Principals and those entered as Witnesses can be assigned Roles other than the default Roles of "Principal" or "Witness."

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Hi Helmut,

 

I don't agree with your last statement. I got the error message I mentioned in my original post when I entered a person as a Principal and then attempted to assign them to a custom role. I guess I don't fully understand roles though I use roles extensively. The issue with Principals and custom roles is a recent problem.

 

Joe

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Joe,

 

Are you talking about Helmut's last statement or to mine?

 

If you had a person entered a Principal you should be able to assign them any available Role ("Witness" will not be available) with the drop-down next to the ID#. If doing that generates the error message you mention there is a problem.

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Joe,

 

to assign a role to a person that is already principal, you have to "change" it from principal to the role as Terry said in his statement.

if this person is currently in the witnesses part (with or without a role), you need to change the role there or delete the person from the witnesses and then assig the role.

 

This is valid for all tags, not just Burial Tags.

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I finally figured out my problem; it is a sematic one. Let me use the Burial tag as an example. I've created the role of Interred. If I use the default when adding a person to the Burial tag, the person is assigned the "role" of Principal. I then get an error if I attempt to later assign the Interred role. However, if I assign the Interred role by using the drop down menu next to the ID#, I do not have a problem. My initial confusion is using the term "Principal" to describe a person. If you say a person is a "principal", in my mind you have assigned the role "principal" to the person and must use the variables [P] or [P1] in sentences. It appears that the term "principal" is used in two ways in these discussions: as the role and as the person before a role is assigned.

 

Thanks for the assistance. Your questions and observations have helped clear up my confusion.

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You're welcome, Joe,

You are right that the terms are used in a confusing way, I guess growing out of the history of the program before all the current features were available.

The term "Principal" is used to describe the one or two "principal persons" in the event. Those people are entered in the two spots at the top of the Tag Entry screen. Other participants can be entered as "Witnesses" in the Other Witnesses section of the Tag Entry screen.

By default, people entered as Principal are assigned the Role of "Principal" and people entered as Witnesses are assigned the Role of "Witness." However, you can assign any other Role to either (exception: you cannot assign the Role of "Witness" to a person entered as a Principal, or the reverse).

You can also change the default Roles for both Principals and Witnesses in the Tag Type definition. If you do that your specified Roles will be automatically assigned when you enter new people into the tag.

Now to Sentence Variables for people. There are really two separate sets, and either can be used. The "old" - that is pre-role set - refers to people by where they are entered in the Tag Entry Screen. They include [P], [PO], [P1], [P2], and [WO]. The newer "role variables" refer to people by their Roles, not their position in the Tag. They have the form [R:rolename] and can be used to refer to people entered as either Principals or Witnesses. Each set has it's advantages, and they can be used intermixed in a Sentence - I often do that.

 

As an aside, since the Roles "Principal" and "Witness" are true roles, they can be used with the Role variables. In fact variables like [RF:Witness] are useful for producing output forms not available with the older variables.

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