Adding custom fields for people

Overview of intended functionality

While we've tried to anticipate the most common field needs of those coordinating admin, it's sometimes the case that you want to record information that doesn't comfortably fit in any of the categories, fields or sections already available in ChurchSuite.

For example, maybe you have a real emphasis on community meals and so a section in the Address Book where special dietary requirements can be logged against contacts could be helpful. Or perhaps your organisation maintains a membership, so a selectable list of membership status options on each member's profile would be really useful. To cater for these types of scenarios you can create Custom Fields within the Address Book, Children, Giving and Bookings modules for contacts, children, givers and customers respectively.

You can choose from a variety of data formats for custom fields - Text fields (single sentence, paragraph, email, phone), List fields (checkbox for multi-select, drop-down for single select, radio) and a Date field. Each field's Name and Option labels have a 250 max. character limit and responses for Single sentence and Paragraph type fields also have a 250 max. character length.

When you move someone between the Address Book and Children modules, custom field data is preserved as a note against the person being moved; it's not possible to move custom field responses between modules.

Custom fields are fully searchable using the module's Advanced Search and as conditions in Smart Tags; and custom field values can be assigned or updated as an action within a Flow. Finally, the Missing Data and Table Generator reports can be used to identify missing/present custom field responses.

Adding custom fields

To add a custom field, head into the respective module's Settings via the cogwheels icon in the top right-hand corner of the module. In this article, we'll look at custom fields in the Address Book but the same process applies in the Children, Giving and Bookings modules.

On the Module Options tab, scroll down to the Custom Fields section and click Add custom field.

On the Add custom field pop-up, enter an appropriate field Name and choose the response Type. Depending on the response type selected, you can set response Options by clicking Add option. You can re-order response options using the re-order controls to the left of each option, or remove an unwanted option entirely. You can also optionally set the field Required for module Users, who will be required to choose a response when adding, importing or editing a person's details in ChurchSuite.

Optional Settings control the custom field's visibility and editability in other parts of ChurchSuite. Each module has different settings, and there are no settings in respect of the Giving module or Bookings module custom fields. A custom field can be set as required for module Users but not required in other places where people are adding or editing their own data, or vice versa. Similarly, some custom fields may be internal-use-only - such as a Member Status field that you don't want people to self-edit but is a required field for a module user when they are adding, editing or importing people's details. Click Save to add the new custom field.

The newly-added custom field is added to the end of the list of custom fields but note the option to change the custom field Order.

Custom field responses can be managed when adding or editing a person's profile - required fields are distinguished by a red asterisk - scroll down the pop-up to locate the Custom Fields section.

Custom field responses are shown on the Details tab when viewing a person's profile page.

Changing existing custom fields and response options

You can make changes to existing custom field settings and, where applicable, response options, by selecting Edit from the custom field Actions. Note that a View changes log is maintained for all changes subsequently made to a custom field. You can permanently (and irreversibly) Delete an unwanted custom field, which will remove all knowledge of people's responses to the deleted field - delete with caution!

When editing a custom field you can change the Order of options in the list - perhaps having added a new option you wish to be positioned in a certain place in the list. Click the re-order control to the left of the option name. The option order is respected across ChurchSuite wherever that custom field is surfaced as editable. Additionally, making a change to a custom field's Name or Option label will immediately make that change known across the platform. For example, changing an existing option from "Member" to "Member - Active" will update everyone in the module whose data had the original response to now have the new response.

From time to time you may wish to remove unwanted response options that no longer serve a useful purpose. Clicking the X next to a response option will give you a choice to permanently (immediately and irreversibly) Delete the option - which will delete all knowledge of that response from people's data across the module - or Archive the response option.

Having made a selection to archive or delete, remember to click Save on the Edit pop-up. Archived response options can later be Set as active again if desired. Archiving an option will cause it to no longer be available to select when adding new data but will continue to show (with strike-through) at the bottom of the list of response options in the module settings and remain as the selected option against any person that has previously chosen it. Therefore, it's possible to edit a person that has an archived response option and make an unrelated change and the archived option will persist against that person when their record is saved. Archived response options remain fully searchable in Advanced Search and Smart Tags.

In the example below, the "Retired" response option has previously been archived. Clicking the green tick to the right of the archived response option will Set as active again, or the response can be permanently Deleted (or click the green tick again to dismiss those actions). Remember to Save the pop-up when you have finished making changes.

Note that it's only possible to change the response Type to another within the same subtype, as follows:

• List subtype: Checkbox List, Drop-Down List, Radio List
• Non-list subtype: Email, Phone, Single Sentence, Paragraph
• Date subtype: Date

Batch-updating custom field response data

For custom fields that are required (designated by a red asterisk) - and where you have existing people in the module - the Batch Update action can be used to assign a default value to all those people. This action is only available for required fields, but you can temporarily set a field required to perform a batch update, assign a default value, and then un-require the field after.

Selecting Batch update opens a pop-up enabling you to select the default response to be assigned to all people within the module for the site/s being viewed. Only those without an existing custom field response value will be updated; people with an existing response value (active or archived) will not be changed. In the example below, all Address Book contacts for the site being viewed will be assigned a "No" response for this custom field, except for those who already have an existing response.

Custom fields in action

When editing a person's profile in the Address Book or Children module the Custom Fields can be updated. Custom fields that are required are distinguished by a red asterisk - module Users will be unable to save the pop-up until all the required, including required custom fields, have a response.

Custom fields are shown on the Details tab of a person's profile page.

Custom fields are fully-searchable when using the Advanced Search for contacts and children. Click the Advanced search icon:

The list of searchable fields is surfaced. Note that you will need to scroll to the end of the list to view your custom fields.

Custom Fields can be bulk-edited for multiple selected people using Batch Actions.

Custom Fields can also be used as options in Smart Tag conditions, to match people who have or don't have certain custom field values.

And finally, Custom Field values can be assigned or updated as Actions when processing people through Flows.

Markdown support in custom fields (developers)

Some custom field types support Markdown notation - a text-to-HTML conversion that many developers may already be familiar with. Markdown allows you to type using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, which translates into structurally-valid HTML, displaying in ChurchSuite with appropriate text and clickable URLs. Consider the following example - a 'drop-down list' type with 4 markdown-formatted response options.

When editing a person's profile to assign a custom field response, the markdown is rendered like this...

...and the selected response shows clickable on the person's profile page - linking to Sue's Address Book profile in this example.

Markdown notation always follows this pattern: [label](link). The link is made up of the module name, the object in the module and the object ID. The object ID is an internal record identifier shown at the end of the URL shown in your browser when viewing that object. In the example below - viewing an Address Book contact's profile - the URL shows you the module name (addressbook), the object (contact) and the ID (1584). From this information, you can construct the markdown notation e.g. [Carys Allen](addressbook_contact:1584). Note, that the round and square brackets are essential.

Once markdown values are set up as custom field settings, they're always shown throughout the platform as the label stated in the square brackets but the label will be linked and clickable. CSVs, PDFs and email Merge Fields will always just show the square-bracketed label unlinked.

Some other examples of supported custom field markdown:

• [Pancake Spectacular - 28th Jan](calendar_event:12434)
• [Little Jimmy](children_child:279)
• [Impact](children_group:238)