Make UDFs Your BFFs!
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Do you ever wonder what would be the best way to track your organization’s specific information, such as who your board members are, what constituents have attended your events, and any other information regarding the people that are important to your organization? The answer is…User Defined Fields (aka UDFs)!
When creating a UDF it is important to think about what information you want, how you want to use it, and whether or not this is something that will change. You’ll want this information to be easy to find on the account and easy to query on. When you are trying to decide how you want to track the information, ask yourself Is this something that will change? Your answer to this depends on how and where this information will be stored.
The first step in creating your field is to decide what category you want to put it in. The category is going to serve as the topic of the fields that belong in it. This will allow you to easily locate the field when you need it. Once you have that selected you can name your field. The name of the field will easily identify what data is going to be stored in this field. You will have the opportunity to select a different label for online forms or any external purposes.
Data Type determines what kind of information is being stored such as text, number, date, or currency. Your data type will determine how these values are used in queries and reports. If you select a data type as text but are tracking numbers, you will not be able to query on a range and your report will not total up the numbers. Information like age, grade, or even membership level will change every year so consider using a date rather than a number. Tracking information that changes all the time can mean a lot of tedious mass updates. Using Birthday, Graduation Year, or Membership Expiration Date will solve these problems and essentially track the same information. Once you save your user-defined field, you cannot go back and edit the data type.
The Field Application of your field is very important! This is where the field can be viewed within the account. In almost every case, you only want to choose ONE field application….I cannot stress that enough. If you choose multiple field applications you will be putting this field in multiple places and it can cause inconsistent data. You definitely don’t want half of your users to be using the Birthday field on the Personas page and the other half to be using the Birthday field on the Defined Fields page; this will create a headache for anyone trying to pull this information in a query or report later. Items that will be changing should be tracked on each Journal Entry rather than at the account level, such as event registration information and Memorial/Tribute gifts. Journal Contacts are often used for RSVP information and tracking meal preference to the event. In situations where the data will not change, Constituents will be the best option. The Persona field application is meant for any address specific information, such as what company your account works for. Also, be sure you only select one Field Application for your field. Did I mention that yet? Yes, it’s that important.
There are a few Field Attributes that you can select for your field as well. You can choose whether or not this field will be required. Selecting this option means it will be required for ALL accounts or journal entries in your database (depending on your field application). If you do not want it to be required for your entire database, but do want it required for an online form you can leave it unmarked here and just mark it as required on that specific form You can also choose to have it be a searchable field using Advanced Find or have it be visible on eTapestry Mobile.
Finally, you get to choose your Display type. This step is going to determine how the information will be displayed in your field. There are two types of Display Types, selectable or free-form text. This is going to determine how the information will be displayed in your field. If you are looking to offer selectable options (such as Account Type or Mailing Status ) you will select the option of Selection from a set of values, which would be multi-select or Allow assignment of only one item, which would be the single select. If there are only certain values that will be in this field I definitely suggest using one of the selectable types for consistency and avoid issues of inconsistent data entry. The next step in the UDF setup will allow you enter each one of the selectable options, or values. You can always add more or disable values for these fields later if needed. For the free-form text options, you can select Text or Note. The only difference between the Text Box and the Note Field is the way it looks in your database, both can hold the same number of characters but it would be best to use the Note Field if there will be multiple lines of data for easier readability. Once you save your field you cannot change it to the other type (free-form text or selectable).
UDFs are there to really help you get the most out of your data! If you have fields you are no longer using I would suggest you disable them so they no longer appear as options, this will help you keep everything organized and keep your data entry consistent. Disabling a field or value will not remove any of the data stored there. So think about what information might be important to you down the line and go create some fields. Remember, if you aren’t tracking the information now in your database we can’t pull that information later!
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08/09/2016 4:09pm EDT
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