CAA Product Help

circles provide narratives on Training, Explanations, and Hints. These can be related to the overall screen, or to specific items on the screen.





This circle narrative is for the "MODIFY CUSTOM FIELD" Screen in MemberLink.





Creating a Custom Data Field (also called a Church-Defined Data Field or a User Data Field) with a "Drop-Down Box" field type is a two-step process.





Step 1:





"Create" the Custom Data Field with a field type of "Drop-Down Box".





Step 2:





"Modify" the Custom Data Field so that you can provide the drop-down values.





** Note: These values will appear to the user as the only choices for the data that goes into the contact record for this Custom Data Field. The user cannot put in any other values except those you have defined here.





If you are reading this (HELP ?) Circle narrative, you have created a Custom Data Field using a field type of "Drop-Down Box" and now you have clicked on the "MODIFY" Hyperlink in the Navigation Panel of the "CUSTOM FIELD" Screen.





To add values, change values, or delete values, follow these instructions:





Create New Values:


You can create new values by typing a value into the "Possible Values of Field" entry box. Then click the [ADD NEW VALUES] Button. You can add as many values as you need.





For example, a Gender field might have values of Male and Female. But a Sunday School class field might have 30 class names as the selection values.





Change Values:


You can change a value anytime you want. To the right of the value name, there is a box for entering a different value. Enter what you want the value to be, then click the "CHANGE" Hyperlink to apply the change.





When you apply the change, EVERY CONTACT RECORD IN THE DATABASE that had the old value in this Custom Data Field will be updated to reflect the new (changed) value. You do not need to update each record one at a time to make the change.





Later, if you decide you want the old value back, you can just re-enter it and click the "CHANGE" Hyperlink again. You can change a value as often as you want, and each time, it will update all the contact records. If you had 3,000 records (people) in your database, it might take 2-3 seconds or less to apply all the updates.





Delete Values:


You can delete a value from the Drop-Down Box list of choices by clicking on the "DELETE" Hyperlink. The "delete" option is located just to the left of the value name.





When you click the "DELETE" Hyperlink, the system will check to make sure that value is not in use in any of the database records. You cannot delete a value if one or more contact records are still using it. You would have to change those records (people) to a different value so that no records are using the value you want to delete.





Important:


When the field type is Drop-Down Box, the first value in the drop-down selection list is the default display value. It will appear in the drop-down box window prior to the User clicking on the drop-down arrow to see all of the values in the drop-down selection list. Therefore, the first value should be one that indicates no actual value has been selected yet.





And since the value list is sorted alphabetically, your MemberLink support team suggests some different ways you could control the presentation order instead of letting it be completely alphabetic.





For example, you could put parentheses around the first value. That will ensure it sorts to the top of the list. Examples of default values would be (Unknown); (Empty) Choose; (Make a Selection); (Data Missing); or (Data Not Entered Yet).





We recommend something like "(Unknown)" or "(Empty) Choose" for the first entry in the drop-down selection list for any Custom Data Fields using a field type of Drop-Down Box.





Or, you could use a numeric designation in front of each value to control the presentation order. For example, 00) Unknown, 01) Member, 02) Guest, 03) Prospect, 04) Other, and so on. With the number in front, the sort will show the choices in the order you desire rather than alphabetically.





Why do we recommend this?





In the Gender example above, if you have Male and Female for the only two values, Female will be the default display value. (Alphabetically, Female will sort to the top of the selection list over Male.) That might make you think the contact record person is a Female, but in fact the Custom Data Field could also still be empty and would not be found if you do a Search/Select for "Female". The default may show on the screen when nothing was entered into the database yet.





If one of the values in your selection list is "Unknown", it would be a good idea to put it first and in parentheses like this: (Unknown) or 00) Unknown. If you have several values and sometimes you will not know which value to use, let the default be "(Unknown)" or "00) Unknown" instead of "(Empty) Choose".





Make sure you have a default display value at the top of your list of choices, that describes to the User that data has not yet been entered into the person's profile!

"CAA Product Help" from CAA Ministries at Support@CAAsoftware.com or 404-551-4230