Use this link to share with colleagues:
How to Create and Edit Custom Roll-Up Fields: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/1295107
If you're here, you probably:
- Read our best practices regarding roll-up fields and decided to create one,
- Needed to adjust a packaged roll-up field not controlled by organization settings, or
- Were directed to create/edit a roll-up field by our staff or other documentation
Great! Below, we'll show you how to:
- Create a new roll-up
- Edit an existing roll-up
- Great ideas for roll-ups
- And answer some FAQs
If this is your first time creating a custom field, read more about the general process before you dive in; roll-ups are slightly more complicated than other custom fields.
Above: two custom roll-up fields on an Account record
How to create a new roll-up field
Most of the time, you'll be creating a Donation roll-up summary on the Account record. In our example below, we'll be doing exactly that; we want to make an Account field that rolls up:
- Won donations (i.e. the money is in the bank)...
- ...that came in during the 2018 calendar year...
- ...that aren't related to Group Sales (i.e. they're donations, not ticket sales)
Cool? Cool. Let's go!
Sometimes you don't always need to create a roll-up field to achieve your goals! Click here to see our best practices about when - and when not - to create a new roll up field.
1. Click the gear and head to Setup
2. Switch to the Object Manager tab and click on Accounts
3. Switch to Fields & Relationships, then make sure the field you need doesn't already exist
It's worth checking through your list of custom fields to make sure you're not duplicating a field that already exists - data cleanliness is important!
If the field you need exists but you can't see it on your Accounts or Contacts, you'll need to add it to your page layouts. Click here for instructions!
4. So you definitely need to create a new field? Cool, click New
5. Choose Roll-Up Summary and click Next
6. Clearly label and describe your field
- Be specific with your Field Label, as this is what you'll see on page layouts and in reports
- In this example: instead of "Amount donated 2018", we're specific to fiscal or calendar year
- The Field Name will autofill
- Make a note about why you created the field or how it will be used in the Description
- The Help Text is visible to your colleagues on the Account record - it's a good place to specify the kinds of Donations the Roll-Up field does or does not contain
- When you're finished, click Next
7. Specify what you're rolling up, then click Next
Pay attention on this page; there are several elements to complete. Refer to the numbered steps below!
- Object to Summarize: choose Donations (Opportunities in Classic)
-
Roll-Up Type: in this example, we want to add up the total value of all the Donations, so:
- Choose "SUM" as the type of roll-up (see our FAQ section for details about the other options)
- Choose "Amount" as the field to add up
-
Filter Criteria: first, choose "Only records meeting certain criteria" and then apply criteria as you see fit, much like you would in a report; here's more details about the criteria in our example - we recommend you consider similar filds!
- Won = True: this ensures we only add up Donations we've actually gotten the money from
- Donation Record Type not equal to: this makes sure you only roll up the Donations you're interested in; in this case, we're excluding Group Sales and Group Sale Payments
- Close Date filters: we want to only get donations for the CY18 calendar year
Pro-tip: Always be sure to include some criteria! Check out our FAQ for our best practices and guidelines about criteria filters.
8. Visibility settings: nothing to change here
Leave the settings on this page as they are; just click "Next."
9. Add the field to page layouts (or don't), and Save!
We recommend unchecking the box next to "TBQ Account."
10. You're done! Admire your work, and start using your new field.
Your completed field should look something like this:
Now that it exists, you can use it as a column or filter in Account-based reports and see it on your Account page layouts. Hurrah!
How to edit an existing roll-up field
If your roll-up field isn't working as desired, you probably need to edit the filters.
In the example below, we're going to turn our "Soft Credits Lifetime Amount" roll-up field into "Soft Credits FY21 Amount;" that is, we were tracking the total amount of Soft Credits an Account was responsible for, but then decided we wanted to track it year by year.
Let's go!
1. Go to the gear and click Setup
2. Head to the Object Manager tab and click Account
3. Click into Fields & Relationships, search for your field, then click on it
4. Assess your field and figure out what needs to change
Take a look at the filters and try to figure out what's going wrong; we always recommend testing out your filters in a report to make sure you've got them right before applying them here.
5. Ready? Click Edit
6. Make any necessary changes to the field names, description, help text, etc....
Does your screen not look like this? Can you not edit your field?
If your field is packaged, you won't be able to edit it - examples include "Amount Donated in Last # Days", "Amount Donated Last Fiscal Year", etc.
For more information, check out our How to Adjust the Way Packaged Donation Roll-Ups Work article.
In this example, we're changing the name to "Soft Credits FY21" and the Description and Help Text to match.
Careful now!
Be aware changing the name of your field will mess up any automation you've set up that references this field. Reports and page layouts are fine, but careful not to break anything you've built.
7. ...then scroll down, adjust your filters, and click Save
In the example below, we're adding the two Close Date filters to get only donations made during our 2021 fiscal year.
For more filter examples, best practices, and ideas, check out our FAQ!
Great ideas for roll-ups
You can do all sorts of cool things with roll-up fields, and we've seen some great ideas from our clients. Here are some of those ideas, but don't take our word for it; head to the Community to ask and share about your most game-changing custom roll-up summary fields!
- Open Pledge Count/Amount: in conjunction with a badge, an easy way for your box office staff to quickly see they're talking to someone planning to give your organization money
- Major Gift In Progress: similarly, in conjunction with a badge, a great way to send a signal to your staff to give this patron (or their partner) some special treatment
- Benefits Active/Expired/etc.: roll up Benefits instead of Donations to track which Accounts (and their Contacts) either are active members or are about to expire; another great one to use in conjunction with badges
- Amount Donated FYXX: specifically for use with our Add-On Reports and Dashboards for Development, you'll create this field as part of setting up dashboards to cleanly show you donor trends over multiple years
- Soft Credit Amount: rolling up just Soft Credit record types can help you easily report on your biggest solicitors - the people your organization really counts on!
- Ticket Quantity: if you do Group Sales, rolling up the number of Ticket Order Items by Count within a Ticket Order will show the number of tickets within an order; then this field can be pulled onto the Group Sale record with a custom formula field and used on invoicing templates
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we ever!
First set up your filters in a Donations report, then take a look at the results and make sure you're getting the Donations you want - and not getting any Donations you don't want.
It's easier to see the results of your filters in real-time with reports, so start there! Once you're confident, then go set up your roll-up filters.
- If you want to include only money you've received (i.e. Posted Donations), we suggest using "Won equals True".
- If you also want to include Pledged/Pending Donations (like Pledge Payments with a Stage of "Pledged", or Pending Recurring Credit Card Donation installments), we recommend using "Probability greater or equal to 90" instead.
- Status = Closed Won is also good to make sure you're not getting future and/or unfulfilled pledge payments
- We do not recommend "Stage = Posted", since things like "Grant Awarded" wouldn't be counted with "Stage = Posted", but would be counted under "Status = Closed Won"
- Look for either "Donation Record Type" or "Opportunity Record Type" (which one you'll see varies, but they mean the same thing)
- Set the Operator to "not equal to"
- Use the magnifying glass to select the Record Types that should not count from a pop-up list
- Usual suspects to exclude from your roll-up field:
- Group Sale and Group Sale Payment: these are ticket sales numbers, not donation numbers (despite being channeled through Donations)
- Pledge: while you probably want to include Pledge Payments, the Pledge record isn't $X coming in; rather, it's just a record that your donor promised $X amount
- Grant: similarly, you probably want to include Grant Payments, but the Grant record just is the parent record on which you track due dates, whether it got accepted or rejected, etc.
- Soft Credit: unless you specifically want include this (e.g. a "Program Book Donations" roll-up), you might want to exclude this kind of fundraising credit
- Custom transactional record types, such as Ad Sales, Facility Rentals, In Kind, and more: again, unless you're specifically rolling those up, you might want to exclude these kind of transactional record types
- Both should use "Close Date" rather than "Created Date"
- The first filter is the start of your date range; the Operator should be "greater or equal"
- The next filter is the end of your date range; the Operator should be "less or equal"
- In other words, if you want to sum Donations from calendar year 2017, your filters would be "Close Date greater or equal 1/1/2017" and "Close Date less or equal 12/31/2017"
Glad you asked:
-
COUNT: counts the number of records.
- e.g. the number of Donations a given Account made in a given time period
-
SUM: sums the value of the aggregated field
- e.g. the total amount an Account has donated to a particular Fund, or within a particular date range.
-
MIN: displays the smallest value of the aggregated field
- e.g. used with Close Date, this could show the first time an Account made a Donation to your Education Fund
-
MAX: displays the largest value of the aggregated field.
- e.g. used with Amount, this could show the amount of the largest Donation an Account has ever made. SUM adds total value together, MIN
They're a feature inherent to Salesforce (read: PatronManager didn't invent them!), so you can read more in Salesforce Help documentation. Even better, there's a Trailhead unit about it. If you haven't gotten started with Trailhead, click here to learn more about why you should!
Finally, we recommend asking your colleagues from other organizations in the Client Community for their best roll-up fields; it's a great way to get ideas!
Absolutely! To do this, you'll use the same concepts from this article, but substitute the objects you're working on for "Account" and "Donation."
For example, if you want to see Donations made a Contact specifically, then you'd build your Donation roll-up on the Contact object.
To do this, it may be useful to consult our suggestions for planning a new field.
There isn't a master-detail relationship between Tickets and Accounts or Contacts. There is between Donations and Accounts, which is what allows you to create Donation roll-ups like the examples above.
For more about master-detail relationships, we recommend asking in the Client Community or diving into Salesforce Help and Knowledge.