The contact tab contains most of the contact and biographical information for your contact records. It includes contact data, website and database access, custom fields, telephone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and status information. Each grouping of information is contained within a box on this tab. Where applicable you will see an “edit” ( 
) link to manage the data that appears in the corresponding box.
Administrators may make any/all of the information on this tab available for viewing or self-editing in contacts’ ‘My Profile’ pages by navigating to Setup > My Profile Fields. You may also arrange the data on the 'My Profile' page by navigating to Setup > My Profile Page Layout. A similar tool can be used to manage the layout specific to the administrative view of the contact record by navigating to Setup > Contact Page Layout. Additionally, you may set any of the information managed on this tab to be viewable in the online contact directory by navigating to Setup > Directory Fields.
The contact tab may take on a different look and arrangement depending on your subscription level, which may allow you to rearrange where fields are grouped and displayed. Therefore, the following is a general overview of what is contained on this tab, but note that it may not reflect the exact configuration of your system.
Basic Information
There are core contact data sets that are expected for any deployment of VolunteerMatters this includes a contact’s name (title, first, middle, last, suffix, nickname, mailing name), email address, alternate email address, contact ID, birth date, member since date, and a contact photo, among other basic information.
If the record has an online photo uploaded, the system will display the contact’s photo in this box. To modify any of this information click the 'edit’ ( ) at the bottom-left of the box. This will expand the box down to reveal editable fields. Once you have made your edits you may click “Update” to save your changes or “Cancel” to cancel any changes you might have made. When making changes to dates please either use the date wizard or manually enter your date in a yyyy-mm-dd format.
Contact Status
Any contact record may be assigned a status. This remains their current status until a status change has been made. A contact can only have one current status. An administrator with proper privileges can make a status change by clicking ‘edit’. Bulk status changes for any number of contacts can be made by navigating to Admin > Status.
System Access
This box shows the status of a site user record for this contact record. If a Site User Record exists, the system will provide you with a link to the site user record. If it does not exist, the system will provide a link to create a site user record. A contact record does not need to have a Site User Record as would be the case for resigned or terminated contacts. You may also deactivate a contact’s site user account. The roles assigned to a site user account determines the level of access that contact should have for a) accessing the member area of the website (if you should also subscribe to our Website component offering) and b) access VolunteerMatters data (volunteer opportunities, contact directory, my profile, database, etc.)
Telephone and Address
Each contact may have up to eight (8) telephone numbers.
You may edit telephone entries by clicking the ‘edit’ () icon at the bottom-left of the telephone box. For each contact, you must define one of the telephone numbers as “Primary”. Closerware’s system uses the “Primary” designation for inclusion in reports, mail merges, and exports.
You may enter a phone number for any type by typing the number in the ‘Number’ field. You may edit the telephone number without formatting, as in 2075551212 and it will be formatted automatically. Start international numbers with a '+' character as in +034 44 55674. Numbers without a '+' may be 7 or 10 digits. Letters are not permitted except in the extension field.
Each contact may have an unlimited number of physical addresses. You may custom-define any number of address types (home, work, vacation, etc.) You may define one of the addresses as “Primary”. Closerware’s system uses the “Primary” designation for inclusion in reports, mail merges, and other areas of the system. The address with the “Primary” designation could be any of the entries. In practice it should be the physical address your organization should use first when attempting to contact this individual via the mail.
You may ‘Edit’ () or ‘Delete’ (
) existing address entries by clicking on the corresponding icon to the right of its listing. VolunteerMatters will only allow a single address entry to be defined as “Primary”. If you attempt to assign the “Primary” designation to a second address the system will a) remove the original primary designation and b) add it to the second entry you edited/added.
To add a new address entry, click the “new” (
) icon at the bottom-left of the box. This will expand the box down to reveal editable fields. Select an address type (home, work, vacation, etc.) Once you have made your edits you may click “Add” to save your changes or “Cancel” to cancel.
Custom Fields
Custom fields will also be located on the contact tab in various group "boxes" depending on your system configuration. To manage custom fields, from the main menu visit Setup > Contact Record where you may edit, delete or add custom fields of varying types.
To modify any of this information click the ‘edit’ () at the bottom-left of the box. This will expand the box down to reveal editable fields. Once you have made your edits you may click “Update” to save your changes or “Cancel” to cancel any changes you might have made.
Change History
Each time a change is made to any of the information manageable on the contact tab of a contact’s record, the system records a log of the change which includes:
- The date the change was made
- The time the change was made
- The Site User that made the change
- Which field was changed
- What the field value was prior to the change
- What the field value was as a result of the change
Aside from viewing change history in the contact’s record, you may also report on change history all contact records by visiting Admin > Reports. For more information on reporting, please reference the "Run a report." article.
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