Customizing your member database

Wild Apricot member database can be used to store information about your members, staff, board of directors, volunteers and any other people you maintain contact with.

You can customize your database to store exactly the information you need:

• Define Membership levels
• Customize database fileds - what information is stored - the subject of this page

Go to Settings / Database fields:

Here are the things you can do on this page:

• Rename existing fields and change their options. Click on the field and additional information will be shown.
• Edit field name by editing Field label:
  
  
  
• Change field parameters:
  • Mandatory - whether this field is required for new records
  • Show in... - whether this field should be included in:
    • Online member application form,
    • Member's own editable profile
    • Member's public profile seen via Member directory.
  • Use in - specify levels in which you want to show this field. See: Customizing database fields by level
• For example, you might have some fields for internal administrator use-only - clear all the checkboxes above. Or you might have a custom field 'Home address' and you want to exclude it from Member directory.
  
  
  
• Change field order: use arrows which appear near the field when you click on it or click and drag on a dotted area on the left:
  
  
  
• Delete existing fields:
  
  
  

  Note 1: System fields There are several 'system' fields which can not be hidden, made non-mandatory or deleted. (But most of them can be moved and renamed)

• Add new fields - click on the [Add new field] button. Edit field name, select field type and field parameters. 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.
  • Multiple choice - so-called checkboxes - you can add as many options as needed and multiple values can be selected:
    
  • Radio buttons & Dropdown - selection of values, only one can be selected at the time. The difference is in how this field is presented during data entry:
    

Note 2: Saving changes Your changes will be reflected on the screen, but will not be permanently saved until you use [Save all changes] button on the toolbar:

Once your changes are saved, they will be immediately reflected on the online Member application form, Member directory, when adding members by hand and in the import template generated for you (see Import Guide )