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How to Create a Custom Record Type: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1134200
Record Types are used to categorize data within PatronManager. For instance, Donation Record Types track different types of gifts like pledges and grants, as well as other types of income like sponsorships and group sales. Similarly, Account Record Types may be used to categorize different kinds of Accounts. Most importantly, Record Types control the page layout, what fields you see, and which values you want to see in your picklists.
In this article, we'll walk through setting up a custom Donation Record Type. As an example, let's create a Sponsorship Record Type.
- First, we'll create a unique Page Layout. Consider what fields you'd like to see in your new Record Type, as the page layout will be specific to the Record Type we create.
- Then, we'll create a new Sales Process for the Donation Record Type; we'll set up stages like "posted", "not posted", "pledged", and others to track sponsorship acquisition progress.
- Finally, we'll create our new Record Type and incorporate our work from the previous two steps.
At the end, we have some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
To help set you up for success, we’ve put guidelines together to help you avoid interfering with PatronManager functionality, corrupting your data, and to prevent negative impacts to your customizations due to PatronManager product upgrades.
Lets make a Sponsorships record type!
When we create our new Record Type, we'll want it to have its very own page layout - after all, we probably want to see very different fields on a Sponsorship donation than we do on a Grant donation.
1. Navigate to Setup
2. Go to the Object Manager - search for and click on Donation
3. Go to the Page Layouts tab and click "New"
4. Choose an existing Layout to base your new layout on, give the Page Layout a name, and click "Save"
We've selected the Donation Layout as the existing layout to clone, which means all the fields on the Donation layout will appear on our Sponsorship Layout. We'll customize our new layout in the next step, but the Donation Layout is a great base to start from for our purposes.
Leave Feed-Based Layout unchecked.
5. You'll land on a page to edit your Page Layout. Here, you can add relevant fields to your new Page Layout and remove fields you won't need on your Record Type
If you'd like to learn more about the ins and outs of editing page layouts, check out our help article, "Page Layouts: Change the Way Your Account, Contact and Donation pages look".
Don't forget to save when you're done!
This Sales Process will define which stages we'll use to track the progress of acquiring sponsorship money from start to finish.
Note that Sales Processes only apply to Opportunities; if you were to create a new Record type for the Account or Contact objects, you wouldn't need to set up a Sales Process. If you're creating a Record Type that isn't on the Opportunity, you can skip straight to Part C.
1. Navigate to Setup
2. Search for and click on Sales Processes
3. Click "New"
4. Fill in the following information:
- Existing Sales Process: Donations
- Sales Process Name: Sponsorships
- Description: Used to track sponsorships
- Click "Save"
5. Add whichever stages you'd like to be part of the Sales Process for your Record Type, and save
Don't see a stage value you'd like to add? Learn how to create new stage values!
Now we're ready to create the new Record Type!
You have arrived! We're now ready to create our Record type, which will contain the Sponsorship page layout and Sponsorship sales process we set up in the previous two steps.
1. Navigate to Setup
2. Go to the Object Manager - search for an select Donation
3. Go to the Record Types tab, and click "New"
4. Enter the details for your new Record Type
- Existing Record Type: We'll choose Donation as a template for our record type
- Record Type Label: Sponsorship
- Record Type Name: This automatically populates
- Sales Process: Sponsorships - This field only appears for Donation Record Types
- Description: "Use this record type for sponsorships" - Your coworkers will see this description when choosing a record type for a new record
- Active: Check this box to make sure the Record Type is active!
- Enable for profile: Check this box - we want to enable all profiles
- Click "Next"
5. Assign the Sponsorship record type with the Sponsorship layout you created in part A, and Save
6. Edit picklist values
You can control what picklist values will appear on a particular Record Type. This is great when you know, for example, that none of your normal donations will have Type = Pledge, or that all of your Sponsorships will only be Type = Restricted or Type = Unrestricted.
Click "edit" next to the name of the field, and add or remove values as needed. This will determine which values are available on a field for this Record Type
Now that you've created a brand new Record Type, there's so much you can do with it!
1. Select the Sponsorship Record Type in the Donations tab
2. Report on your new Sponsorship Record Type or exclude it from a Donations report if needed
Here we've added a filter on the customize screen of our report to exclude the Sponsorship Record Type.
4. Make a custom List View in the Donations tab that exclusively shows Sponsorships
Learn more about how to create a List View here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Great question! In general, if you're looking to categorize very similar records, we recommend using custom fields instead of a custom Record Type. For example, if you want to separate out Restricted Grants from Unrestricted Grants, we recommend using custom fields to distinguish them (the "Type" picklist is a great option!).
If you're looking to differentiate very different kids of records, like Donations versus Sponsorships, where you'd like different page layouts and Stage values, then using a custom Record Type will be your best bet.