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Customizing your common database fields
Overview
- All of the records in the system are stored in the same database - contacts, members, event attendees and any other records
- Common Fields apply to all contacts. There are additional fields that apply to specific types of contacts / contact transactions:
- You can add an unlimited number of custom fields
- Each online form (application, donation, event or email subscription) will automatically be generated based on the common fields AND the additional specific fields that apply to that form.
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- Common fields are global, so you cannot have a Common field with the same name as a membership, donation, or event field.
- On the other hand a membership field can have the same name as a donation or event field since these are hidden from each other.
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Customizing Common Fields
To view, edit or add a new common (contact) field go to Settings -> Common fields:
Field Types
- You can only set the type of database field when creating a new field.
- Click on the [Add new field] button and select the field type.
- Currently available field types are:
- Section divider - this is not a real entry field, but rather a 'header' for a set of fields, useful to arrange the fields into logical groups.
- Section divider is automatically hidden from online forms if there are no fields within this section visible to the current user.
- Text - simplest type of field, used for short text entries
- Multiline text - used for text entries up to 3000 characters
- Picture - a field for person's photo, company logo, online avatar etc.
- Rules and terms - see Field for contractual terms
- Multiple choice - so-called checkboxes - you can add as many options as needed and multiple values can be selected
- Radio buttons & Dropdown - set of pre-defined choices, and only one can be selected at a time. The difference is in how this field is presented during data entry. See also Working with List Fields
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- Field type cannot be changed after the field has been created / saved.
- Deleting a field will automatically lose all data stored in that field for all contacts.
- The only way to change a field type is to first export all contacts to an Excel file, delete the field and re-create it as a new field type, then re-import the saved Excel file
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Field settings
- Click on the field you want to edit to bring up the field parameters (in above example we are editing the field "Phone")
- Field label - the name of the field must be unique. Since common fields span across all contacts this means this common field name cannot be used again in membership fields, event fields, or donation fields.
- Mandatory - sets whether the field is required or optional
- Others access - defines who is allowed to view this field in the member's public profile. This is a default setting which can also be changed by each member, see Privacy settings
- Admin Only - indicates internal field that can only be seen or edited by the Administrator. Admin-only fields are displayed under "Internal use" on the Contact details screen.
System fields
- There are special Common system fields which cannot be deleted (but can be renamed): First name, Last name, Email, User ID (aka Member ID), Organization and Phone
- User ID is automatically generated by the system and cannot be changed, see User ID.
- Hiding system fields: If you do not need any of these you should make them admin-only (since they cannot be deleted); Only "Email" and "User ID" cannot be hidden since these fields have to be unique for each person and are used as contact identifiers.
- Renaming: System fields are used throughout the system so be careful when renaming them e.g. renaming "Organization" to "Company" is fine, but renaming "Last name" to "Address" is not a good idea and will cause problems later on.
- Required fields: When manually adding a new contact only one of "First name", "Last name", "Email" or "Organization" is required, see Adding a new contact. For all self-service Online Forms (member application, email subscription, donation and event registration) the email field is always required.
Saving changes
- Your changes will be reflected on the screen, but will not be permanently saved until you use the [Save all changes] button on the toolbar
- Once your changes are saved, they will immediately be reflected on all online forms, Contact records, Member directory etc.
See also
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