PatronManager Help

How to Use Badges to Get to Know Your Patrons

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How to Use Badges to Get to Know Your Patrons: https://help.pm.leapevent.tech/a/829715

Badges are attention-grabbing images that provide important information about a patron at a glance. They can appear on Contact records, Account Records, and Ticket Orders, and are a great way to strengthen your patron relationships.

Read on to learn about:

At the end, we have some Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

Prefer watching to reading? Start with this recorded webinar!

What do badges look like?

Here are examples of badges that come built in to PatronManager. Custom badges you create can be similar, but the design of those is up to you.

Example of badges on a Contact record

Example of badges on a Ticket Order

To add a Contact badge to PatronManager Box Office, first create the badge, then follow the steps in this article.

How are badges useful?

In so many ways! Because they give important information at a glance, badges can help staff members remind patrons of perks or outstanding pledges, encourage them to renew subscriptions and memberships, thank them for their contributions, and much more. Here are just a few concrete examples:

  • When a current subscriber calls the box office to buy extra tickets, thank them for subscribing and ensure they receive their subscriber discount
  • When a major donor or board member walks up to the box office window, greet and thank them appropriately
  • When a lapsed member (or one coming up on their expiration date) calls to make a donation, encourage them to renew their membership
  • When a patron with particular organization history or preferences calls to buy tickets, make sure that box office knows what to ask or suggest for them

Built-in PatronManager badges

PatronManager comes with some badges already built into your account! Some badges require minor configuration on your part, for example to determine which Events count toward subscriber badges - expand the links below to learn more.

More built-in badges may be added in future - if you have an idea for a badge that you think would be helpful for others, suggest a Product Idea.

If you don't see badges on your patron records, be sure to add them to the page layout.

Note that built-in badges recalculate on a nightly basis - so a patron who purchases a subscription or a membership today will receive a badge tomorrow.

Member Status

The Member Status badge will appear on a Contact record if the patron has ever purchased a Membership. It will also appear on an Account record if at least one patron in the Account has purchased a Membership.

It will appear in one of three versions:

  • Current Member: Appears for patrons with active Benefits that expire more than 30 days from now; appears green
  • Expiring Member: Appears for patrons with active Benefits that expires between today and 30 days from now; appears yellow
  • Recent Member: Appears for patrons whose Benefits expired in the past 365 days; appears yellow
  • Lapsed Member: Appears for patrons whose Benefits expired more than 365 days ago; appears gray

Here's what it looks like on a Contact:

Member Status badge on Contact

And here it is on an Account:

Member Status badge on Account

There are also some helpful packaged fields for Membership information: Latest Contact Membership (only available on Contacts), Latest Account Membership (only available on Accounts) and Latest Membership Expiration.

These fields can also be added to your page layouts to see more information about your members!

Configuration steps:

None! As long as you're using Benefits, this badge will work automatically.

That said, if you'd like to adjust the date range criteria, for example to show the "Expiring Member" badge for patrons with Benefits expiring in the next 90 days, you'll need to configure your own customized version of the badge.

Show me how to adjust the date ranges!
1. Go to Setup
Go to Setup
2. Go to Object Manager
Go to Object Manager
3. Use Quick Find to find and select Contact
Find and select Contact
4. Go to Fields & Relationships
Click Fields & Relationships
5. Use Quick Find to find and select Member Status
Find and select Member Status
6. Copy and paste the formula into a text editor
Copy and paste the formula

We'll use this formula later for our customized version of the badge. You can paste this into a Word Document, Google Doc, Notepad file, really anywhere so that you can access it later!

7. Click Fields & Relationships
Click Fields & Relationships
8. Click New
Click New
9. Select Formula, then click Next
Select Formula, then Next
10. Enter a name for the Field Label, select Text, then click Next
Enter a Field Label, select Text, click Next
11. Copy and paste the formula you copied here
Copy and paste the formula

Grab the formula you copied back in step 6 here. This is because we're going to use the packaged formula as the base for our customized one!

12. Make the date adjustments you need

Here you'll make the adjustment to the date criteria that you want. For example, if you want the "Expiring Member" badge to show if a patron's Benefits expire in the next 90 days, you'll make this adjustment:

Adjustment 1

And if you want to adjust the date criteria so that the "Current Member" badge shows if a patron's Benefits expire more than 15 days in the future, you'll make this adjustment:

Adjustment 3
13. Once you've made your changes, click Next
Click Next
14. Click Next
Click Next
15. Uncheck TBQ Contact, then click Save
Uncheck TBQ Contact, then click Save

Now that you've created your own custom version of the Member Status badge, don't forget to adjust your page layouts to remove the original version of the Member Status badge from your Contacts! If you don't, you'll have two potentially conflicting badges on your Contact records.

Subscriber Status and Account Subscriber Status

The Subscriber Status badge will appear on an Account if that patron has purchased a subscription tagged (on the subscription Ticketable Event) with a badge. The corresponding Account Subscriber Status badge appears for the Contacts within that Account. These badges have three versions:

  • Current Subscriber: Appears for patrons who have purchased a subscription presently tagged as "Current"
  • Recent Subscriber: Appears for patrons who have not purchased any "Current" subscriptions, but who have purchased a subscription presently tagged as "Recent"
  • Lapsed Subscriber: Appears for patrons who have not purchased any "Current" or "Recent" subscriptions, but who have purchased a subscription presently tagged as "Lapsed"

Configuration steps:

Applying and updating these badges is as easy as adjusting the "Subscriber Badge" picklist on your various subscription Ticketable Events! Here's where to find that field:

Changes you make will take effect the following day, as badges recalculate nightly.

Custom badges

Many organizations create and use additional badges, as they're highly customizable to your unique needs. Your account may have custom badges already in use, or perhaps you'd like to make some new ones - read on to learn more.

Since custom badges are unique to your organization, PatronManager cannot support or maintain them for you. We recommend that you:

  1. Start with the guidelines below
  2. If you get stuck, ask your peers for suggestions in the Client Community
  3. If there's a badge you'd love to see built in to PatronManager in future, suggest a Product Idea to let us know!

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. 

What badges should/can we make?

Before making a custom badge, check Setup to make sure that you don't already have the badge you need built into your account!

The best badges convey information your staff should know right away when interacting with patrons. If your major donors should never be told a show is sold out, a "Major Donor" badge can ensure even new staff members get the memo.

Some common custom badges include:

  • VIP Patron
  • Problem Patron
  • Theatre Relationship Badge, to denote members of the media, board members, artists, and more
  • Open Pledge
  • Active Major Gift Prospect
  • Major Donor

We'll touch on how to create all of these below.

Have an idea for something that's not on the list? Keep reading - we'll get to special cases later on in this article.

What triggers a badge to appear?

Badges are formula fields that cause an image to appear if the formula evaluates to true. The following types of fields can be used to trigger the appearance of a badge:

  • A checkbox. When one of your users checks a box on the Contact, this badge will appear.
    • This is the easiest kind of badge to build, but requires manual effort to check and uncheck the box. We suggest using this for true/false badges that apply to just a few patrons.
    • For example: a VIP badge or a Problem Patron badge.
  • A picklist. Specific values on a picklist field can trigger the appearance of related badges.
    • This also requires manual effort to adjust the picklist, but has an advantage since one picklist can trigger different badges based on different values. We suggest using this for variable badges where only one option can apply at a time, and that apply to small numbers of patrons.
    • For example: a Board Status badge with values of Current and Former
  • A rollup summary. Rolled up values like "Lifetime Donation Amount" can trigger badges based on those values.
    • These badges require the least effort to maintain, since the values that trigger them calculate and change automatically, but they're typically a bit more complex to set up since they may use a variety of ranges.
    • For example: a Major Donor or Donor Level badge.

If you want custom badges you've built to appear on your Ticket Orders in the PatronManager Box Office, you'll have to add the badge fields to a Field Set in Setup.

Click here for a list of rollup fields to help you brainstorm possible badges!

Did you realize that there are quite a few built-in roll-up summary and auto-calculated fields in your PatronManager account? You can leverage these fields to create badges. Here's a list of auto-calculated fields built into PatronManager already:

On the Account Record

  • Amount Donated In Last # Days
  • Amount Donated This Fiscal Year
  • Amount Donated Last Fiscal Year
  • First Donation Date
  • First Donation Amount
  • Last Donation Date
  • Last Donation Amount
  • Largest Donation Date
  • Lifetime Donation History (Amount)
  • Lifetime Donation History (Number)
  • Lifetime Order Count
  • Lifetime Membership $
  • Lifetime Single Ticket $
  • Order Count Last # Days
  • Membership $ Last # Days
  • Single Ticket $ Last # Days

On the Contact Record

  • Current or Most Recent Benefit Level
  • Latest Benefit Expiration
  • Has Active Benefits
Ready to make a custom badge? Let's go!

1. First, answer these three questions:

Where do you want the badge to appear? On the Contact or Account level? Where on the page layout?

When and why do you want it to appear? What are the criteria that should be met for this badge to appear?

What should it look like? What color and style? It's up to you.

2. Ready? It's time to create the badge image

Here's a free online resource you can use to create custom badge images: DaButtonFactory.com

  1. Decide on the text of your badge, and how that text looks.
  2. Set your size (you may need to adjust the text size accordingly). We recommend max 40 px tall, and just wide enough to accommodate your text.
  3. Change the look and style of your badge.

We recommend using a rounded rectangle Style and using colors that will stand out in PatronManager!

Avoid using colors that will blend into the background of PatronManager. Here are some colors to avoid:

  • #FFFFFF
  • #061C3F
  • #04844B
  • #FFB75D
  1. Once you've made a great badge image, download it by clicking "Download".

3. Upload the badge to your Salesforce Documents

Before we can use our new badge in PatronManager, we need to upload the image to our Salesforce Documents tab, which requires a little detour to Salesforce Classic.  Then, we need a URL so we can reference the image later.

Here's a step-by-step guide to upload and reference that image!

4. Build your badge

This is the "why" of your badge. We talked about this a bit earlier in our article.

We're going to look at some examples of commonly used badges, and show you how to build them.  Each badge uses one of the triggers we talked about above - if you have an idea for a badge not listed here, you can still follow the steps outlined for that trigger type.

Guidelines for common custom badges

VIP Patron or Problem Patron (Checkbox Trigger)

Any badge you build using this process would appear based on a user at your organization checking a checkbox on the Contact. Once the box is checked, the badge appears.

1. Click on the gear in the upper right-hand corner, and select "Setup"
2. In Setup, click on the Object Manager tab, then find and click on Account or Contact

Which one you choose depends on where you'd like the badge to appear! Hint: if you want to show the badge in PatronManager Box Office later on, place it on the Contact.

3. Go to "Fields  & Relationships" and click "New"
4. Click the "Checkbox" field type, then the "Next" button
5. Fill in the blanks on the next page
  1. Field Label: This is what the field name will appear as on the Contact, so name it something descriptive and snappy. In this example, we're creating a VIP Badge, so we'll enter "VIP?" in the field label.
  2. Default Value: Leave this as unchecked. If you automatically had it checked, everyone would get the VIP badge unless it was specifically unchecked by a staff member.
  3. Field Name: This will be autopopulated by Salesforce.
  4. Description: It's important to fill in this field with the purpose of this field. Why? Because if you leave your organization, it helps your successor or other staff members know why this badge was created. See our description for an example.
  5. Help Text: This appears when you hover over the question mark next to the field once it's visible on the Contact page. Often, copying and pasting the description suffices for this field, but tweak as needed for your organization.
6. Click "Next"

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, you can uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked

8. Select which page layouts this badge should display on. Uncheck the TBQ Layout from the list. Click "Save"

If you're not familiar with what we mean when we say "page layout", leave all but TBQ Layout checked.

9. You'll be taken back to the Contact fields setup page. Congratulations - you just created the first part of the badge!

Now it's time to actually make the image display on the Contact.

10. In Fields & Relationships, click "New"
11. Click the "Formula" field type, then the "Next" button
12. Fill in the the blanks on this page
  1. Field Label: Give it the naming convention of "(Purpose of Badge) Badge". Since we're working on a VIP Badge, we're going to name this one "VIP Badge".
  2. Formula Return Type: Select "Text" even though we'll actually produce an image rather than text alone.
  3. Click "Next" when you're done.
13. Write the formula that makes your badge appear

Formulas are a powerful - and complex - tool.

Because we're working with a checkbox field that can only result in two things - being TRUE (if it's checked) or FALSE (if it's not checked) - our formula is very simple. You can copy and paste the formula below to get you started, and then follow along to put the right field names into your own formula.

IF( Checkbox Field  = TRUE,  
IMAGE("Image URL", "Plain Text of Badge" ),
 "")

Want to learn more about writing formulas? Do the following trail in Salesforce's Trailhead training resource.

14. Copy and paste the above formula into the text box you see on your screen
15. Highlight "Checkbox Field", and click the "Insert Field" button
16. Find your checkbox field in the list on the right
17. Click on the field, and then click the "Insert" button
18. Go back and copy the URL you put in a safe place back in step two
19. Highlight the text "Image URL" inside the quotation marks, and paste in your URL

We'll replace everything between the quotation marks with the URL from earlier:

/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/renditionDownload?rendition=ORIGINAL_Png&versionId=0681K00000TooyE&operationContext=CHATTER&contentId=05T1K00002Nvd1P

20. Highlight the text "Plain Text of Badge", and insert whatever text would appear on the badge image

In this case, the "Plain Text of Badge" is VIP.

21. Your formula should look like this now, with your field name, URL, and plain text inside it

Make sure that quotation marks surround the URL and your badge plain text.

22. Scroll down a bit, and click the "Check Syntax" button

If green text pops up like you see below, you've done everything right!

If you get red text like you see below, check the following things:

  • Make sure you have quotation marks (" ") surrounding the URL and the Plain Text of your Badge.
  • Make sure your field name (the part before = TRUE) looks something like this, with the _c present:
    • VIP_c

Click the Check Syntax button until you get the green text result.

23. Fill in the Description and Help Text with the purpose/criteria of the badge

It's a good idea to summarize the criteria that makes the badge appear in the help text, that way your users will know why the badge is or is not appearing for a given patron.

24. Click the "Next" button on the right side of your screen

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked

26. Select which page layouts this badge should display on. Uncheck the TBQ Layout from the list. Click "Save"

If you're not familiar with page layouts, leave all but TBQ Layout checked.

27. You just built a formula field - yay you!
28. Go to the "Contacts" tab - or "Accounts" if you placed your badge there

Click on the App Launcher, Search "contact" (or "Account")  and click on Contacts

29. Click on any Contact, and see what your badge and checkbox field look like

Test out your field by double clicking on the checkbox field you created. In our example, it was the "VIP?" field. Click "Save" once it's checked.

It should look like this once you check the checkbox field and click Save:

30. If you need to move the field's location on the Contact record, you can edit the page layout

You can read instructions on editing that page layout here. You'll be editing the layout on the Contact (or Account, if that's where you placed your field).

Yay you! You just implemented a badge
Theatre Relationship Badge (Picklist Trigger)

Utilizing the following process, the badge will trigger when a user at your organization selects a specific item from a picklist on the Contact. Once that picklist option is selected, the badge appears.

Because we're using a picklist field, this single field can make one of several different images pop up on your badge field. Make sure you've uploaded all the separate badge images you need before building this part of the badge.

1. Click on the gear and go to Setup
2. Go to the Object Manager tab, search "contact" in the Quick Find box, and click on Contact

In this example, we'll place the Theatre Relationship badge on the Contact record.

3. Go to the "Fields & Relationships" tab and click "New"
4. Select the "Picklist" field type and then click "Next"
5. Fill in the blanks on the next page
  1. Field Label: This is what the field name will appear as on the Contact, so name it something descriptive and snappy. In this example, we're creating a Theatre Relationship badge, so we'll enter "Theatre Relationship" in the field label.
  2. Values: Select "Enter values...". In the big block below this, enter in each value you'd like on this picklist, separated by a line.
  3. Restrict picklist to the values defined in the value set?: Check this box. Otherwise, you'll be allowing your users to enter in whatever values they'd like in this picklist.
  4. Field Name: This will be autopopulated by Salesforce.
  5. Description: It's important to fill this in with information about the purpose of this field. Why? Because if you leave your organization, it helps your successor, or other staff members, know why this badge was created. See our description for an example.
  6. Help Text: This appears when you hover over the question mark next to the field once it's visible on the contact page. Often, copying and pasting the description suffices for this field, but tweak as needed for your organization.
  7. Required: Leave this unchecked (checking this box can break parts of PatronManager)
  8. Default Value: Leave this blank unless you want all Contacts to start off with a default value. If nothing is here, the picklist will be blank unless it's filled in by one of your users  - and that's OK!
6. Click "Next"

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked.

8. Select which page layouts this badge should display on, then click "Save & New"

If you're not familiar with page layouts, leave all but TBQ Layout checked.

9. Click the "Formula" field type, then the "Next" button
10. Fill in the the blanks on this page
  1. Field Label: We recommend a naming convention of "[Purpose of Badge] Badge". Since we're working on a Theatre Relationship Badge, we'll name this one "Theatre Relationship Badge".
  2. Formula Return Type: Select "Text" even though we'll actually be producing an image rather than text alone.
  3. Click "Next" when you're done.
11. Write the formula that makes your badge appear

Formulas are a powerful - and complex - Salesforce tool that lets us show particular information based on other data.

Because we're working with a picklist field, we have to use a specific function called ISPICKVAL - this allows us to translate which picklist value matches the badge you want to use. You can copy and paste the formula below to get you started, and then follow along to put the right field names into your own formula.

Note: The formula below assumes you are using four different options in this picklist. You can use more or less, but you will have to add or subtract an IF fucntion, and add or subtract a parentheses at the end of the function, for each added or removed value.

IF(
ISPICKVAL(Picklist , "Option 1") ,IMAGE("Option 1 Badge URL", "Plain Text of Badge"),
IF(
ISPICKVAL( Picklist , "Option 2") ,IMAGE("Option 2 Badge URL", "Plain Text of Badge"),
IF(
ISPICKVAL( Picklist , "Option 3") ,IMAGE("Option 3 Badge URL", "Plain Text of Badge"),
IF(
ISPICKVAL( Picklist , "Option 4") ,IMAGE("Option 4 Badge URL", "Plain Text of Badge"),
 ""))))

Want to learn more about writing formulas? Do the following trail in Salesforce's Trailhead training resource.

12. Copy and paste the above formula into the textbox you see on your screen
13. Highlight the first time "Picklist" appears, and click the "Insert Field" button
14. Find your picklist field in the list on the right
15. Click on the field, then click "Insert"
16. Type the name of your first picklist option where it says "Option 1"

The text must exactly match the picklist option you want to use. In our case, the first one we want to use is Press. Keep the quotation marks around it.

17. Go back and copy the URL for the first badge option you are using
18. Highlight the text "Image URL" inside the quotation marks, and paste in your URL

We'll replace everything between the quotation marks with the URL from earlier:

/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/renditionDownload?rendition=ORIGINAL_Png&versionId=0681K00000Top5t&operationContext=CHATTER&contentId=05T1K00002NvdV5

19. Highlight the text "Plain Text of Badge", and insert whatever text would appear on this badge image

In this case, the "Plain Text of Badge" is Press.

20. Repeat steps 13 through 19 for each option on your picklist
21. Your formula should look like this now, with your field names, URLs, and plain text inside it

Make sure quotation marks surround each URL and each badge plain text.

22. Scroll down a bit, and click the "Check Syntax" button

If green text pops up like you see below, you've done everything right!

If you see red text like below, check the following:

  • Make sure you have quotation marks (" ") surrounding the URL and the plain text of your badge.
  • Make sure your field name (the part right after ISPICKVAL ) looks something like this, with the _c present:
    • Theatre_Relationship__c

Click the Check Syntax button until you get the green text result.

23. Fill in the Description and Help Text with the purpose of this badge

It's a good idea to summarize the criteria that makes the badge appear in the help text, that way your users will know why the badge is or is not appearing for a given patron.

24. Click the "Next" button on the right side of your screen

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen.  If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked.

26. Select which page layouts this badge should display on, then click "Save"

If you're not familiar with page layouts, leave all but TBQ Layout checked.

27. You just built a formula field - yay you!
28. Go to the "Contacts" tab - or "Accounts", if you placed your badge there

Click on the App Launcher, search "Contact" in the Quick Find box, and click on Contacts

29. Click on any Contact to see what your badge and checkbox field look like

Double click on the picklist field you created and select one of your options to test out your new field. In our example, it was the Theatre Relationship field. Click "Save" once you select an option.

It should look like this once you pick an option and click save:

30. If you need to move the field's location on the Contact record, you can edit the page layout

You can read instructions on editing that page layout here. You'll edit the layout on the Contact (or Account if that's where you placed your field).

Yay you! You just created a badge
Major Donor Badge (Rollup Summary Trigger)

This is activated by a rollup summary and can have multiple results based on the dollar amount of the field we'll use to activate it. This badge lets you turn a rollup field, like 'Amount Donated This Fiscal Year', into an easy-to-read badge, even allowing for different donor levels to display based on the patron's giving total.

1. First, you'll want to decide on your criteria! Who is considered a "Major Donor" at your organization?

In this example, we'll say that any anyone with donations totaling $1,000 or more (cumulatively) on their Account will be labeled as a Major Donor.  You also want to decide where you want the the Major Donor Badge to be displayed, whether that's on the Contact level or the Account. You'll also want to decide if you want to take Account donation behavior into consideration.

Because we're using a rollup summary field, this single field can make several, different images pop up your badge field. Make sure you've uploaded all the separate badge images you need before building this part of the badge.

In this example, we're only implementing a single badge for all major donors, but you could use this process to indicate donor level as well.

2. Click on the gear in the upper right-hand corner, and select "Setup"
3. In Setup, click on the Object Manager tab, type the name of the place where you want the badge to appear- either Account or Contact, and click on the corresponding link

We're headed to the Contact area because that's the record page we want this badge to appear. You'd search for Account if you wanted to place this badge on the Account record.

4. Go to "Fields & Relationships" and click "New"
5. Click the "Formula" field type, then the "Next" button
6. Fill in the the blanks on this page
  1. Field Label: You should make the field label "[Purpose of Badge] Badge". Since we're working on a Major Donor Badge, we're going to name this the Major Donor Badge.
  2. Formula Return Type:  Select "Text" as the return type, even though we'll actually be producing an image rather than text alone.
  3. Click "Next" when you're done.
7. Next, we'll write our formula

Formulas are a powerful - and complex - tool Salesforce provides us to provide information easily based on other data.

This badge can have different levels of complexity, based on if you're displaying a single image for donors who have given at or greater than a certain dollar amount, or multiple images based on your organization's donor levels.

Here's a simple version with one image:

IF((Donation Rollup Field > 1000), IMAGE("Image URL","Plain Text of Badge"), "")

Here's a more complex one, with multiple donor levels and multiple images:

IF(Donation Rollup Field >= 2000), IMAGE("Image URL","Plain Text of Badge"), 
IF(Donation Rollup Field >= 1500), IMAGE("Image URL","Plain Text of Badge"), 
IF (Donation Rollup Field >= 1000), IMAGE("Image URL","Plain Text of Badge"), "")))

Want to learn more about writing formulas? Do the following trail in Salesforce's Trailhead training resource.

8. Copy and paste the formula of your choice into the text box on the screen
9. Now, highlight "Donation Rollup Field", and click the "Insert Field" button
10. Find your Account Lifetime Donation field in the list on the right

The field you select here may be different depending on the criteria you've created for this badge to appear. There are several different roll-up fields built in to your PatronManager account. You can also create your own roll-up field (typically done on the Account).

11. Click on the field, and then click the "Insert" button on the right
12. Highlight the text "Image URL" inside the quotation marks, and paste in your URL

We'll replace everything between the quotation marks with the URL from earlier:

/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/renditionDownload?rendition=ORIGINAL_Png&versionId=0681K00000SJYwV&operationContext=CHATTER&contentId=05T1K00002EJsAy

13. Highlight the text "Plain Text of Badge", and insert whatever text you have on the badge you're displaying here

In this case, the Plain Text of Badge is Major Donor.

14. Your formula should look like this now, with your field names, URLs, and plain text inside it

Make sure that quotation marks surround each URL and each badge plain text.

15. Scroll down a bit, and click the "Check Syntax" button

If green text pops up like you see below, you've done everything right!

If you get red text like you see below, check the following things:

  • Make sure you have quotation marks (" ") surrounding the URL and the Plain Text of your Badge.
  • Make sure your field name (the part before the > symbol) looks something like this: PatronDonate__AccountLifetimeDonationAmount__c. It should have the _c present.

Click the Check Syntax button until you get the green text result.

16. Fill in the Description and Help Text with the purpose of this badge
17. Click the "Next" button on the right side of your screen

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, you can uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked

19. Select which page layouts this badge should display on, then click "Save"

If you're not familiar with page layouts, leave all but TBQ Layout checked.

20. You just built a formula field - yay you!
21. Go to the "Contacts" tab

Click on the App Launcher, search "contact" in the Quick Find box, and click on the Contacts link.

22. Click on any Contact with who qualifies as a major donor, and voila - the badge should be present!

Some of the roll-ups built in to PatronManager update automatically overnight rather than instantly, for example the "Amount Donated Last # of Days."

This means that if a patron takes action that would trigger a badge (like making a Donation) on a Monday, you may not see the corresponding badge appear on their contact until Tuesday.

23. If you need to move where the field appears, you can do that by editing the page layout

You can read instructions on editing that page layout here. You'll be editing the layout on the Contact.

Yay you! You just created a badge.
Open Pledge Alert or Active Major Gift Prospect Badge (Rollup Summary Trigger)

These two different badge possibilities are built in the same way, and use a custom rollup summary field. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll use Open Pledge Alert as an example. If you'd like the Major Gift Prospect badge instead, substitute "Active Major Gift Prospect" when you build that badge on the Account or Contact.

For the purpose of our tutorial, we'll build the badge on the Account.

1. Click on the gear and go to Setup
2. Go to the Object Manager tab and click on Account

In this example, we'll place the Open Pledge badge on the Account record.

3. Click on the "Fields & Relationships" tab and click "New"
4. Select the "Roll-up Summary" field type and click "Next"
5. Fill in the blanks on the next page
  1. Field Label: This is what the field name will appear as on the Account, so name it something descriptive and snappy. In this example, we're using this field to count how many open pledges this account has, so we'll name it Open Pledge Count.
  2. Field Name: This will be autopopulated by Salesforce.
  3. Description: It's important to fill in this field with the purpose of this field. Why? Because if you leave your organization, it helps your successor, or other staff members know why this badge was created. See our description for an example.
  4. Help Text: This appears when you hover over the question mark next to the field once it's visible on the contact page. Often, copying and pasting the description suffices for this field, but tweak as needed for your organization.
6. Click "Next"
7. Match your settings to those you see in the screenshot below
  1. Summarized Object: This tells Salesforce where to look. We want to look at donations so we'll select Donations.
  2. Select Roll-Up Type: We just want Salesforce to count the number of Donation records with a stage of "Pledged" associated with an Account rather than add the sum of the values of donations in that stage. Therefore, we'll use the COUNT function.
  3. Filter Criteria: Because we don't want this roll-up summary to count every single donation related to this account, we select the second option.
  4. Field: We'll select Stage in Field column, Equals in the Operator column, and Pledged in the Value field.

If you're building a badge for Active Major Gift Prospect, you'll use the same criteria for 1, 2, and 3. For 4 - the field section - you'll input the following two filters:

  • Opportunity Record Type Equals Major Gift
  • Stage Does Not Equal Closed Lost, Closed Won
8. Click "Next"

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked.

10. Uncheck all the boxes on this page and click "Save & New"
11. Click the "Formula" field type, then the "Next" button
12. Fill in the the blanks on this page
  1. Field Label: This should be "[Purpose of Badge] Badge". Since we're working on a Open Pledge Badge, we'll name this "Open Pledge Badge".
  2. Formula Return Type: Select "Text", even though we'll actually be producing an image rather than text alone.
  3. Click "Next".
13. Write the formula that makes your badge appear

Formulas are a powerful - and complex - Salesforce tool Salesforce that lets you display certain information based on other data.

This formula simply says, "if PatronManager finds one or more Donations that are in the Pledged stage, we want the badge to appear."  

Here's what it should look like:

IF(Open Pledge Field>0, IMAGE("Image URL","Plain Text of Badge"), "")

Want to learn more about writing formulas? Do the following trail in Salesforce's Trailhead training resource.

14. Copy and paste our above formula into the textbox you see on your screen
15. Highlight Open Pledge Field, and click the "Insert Field" button

If you don't see the Insert Field button, make sure you're on the Advanced Formula tab.

16. Find your Open Pledge Count field in the list on the right
17. Click on the field, and then click the "Insert" button on the right
18. Go back and copy the URL for the first badge option you are using
19. Highlight the text "Image URL" inside the quotation marks, and paste in your URL

We'll replace everything between the quotation marks with the URL from earlier:

/sfc/servlet.shepherd/version/renditionDownload?rendition=ORIGINAL_Png&versionId=0681K00000Tp03r&operationContext=CHATTER&contentId=05T1K00002Qe7LG

20. Highlight the text "Plain Text of Badge", and insert whatever text you have on the badge you're displaying here

In this case, the Plain Text of Badge is Open Pledge Alert.

21. Your formula should look like this now, with your field names, URLs, and plain text inside it

Make sure that quotation marks surround each URL and each badge plain text.

22. Scroll down a bit, and click the "Check Syntax" button

If green text pops up like you see below, you've done everything right!

If you get red text like you see below, check the following things:

  • Make sure you have quotation marks (" ") surrounding the URL and the Plain Text of your Badge.
  • Make sure your field name (the part before the > symbol) looks something like this: Open_Pledge_Count__c. It should have the _c present.

Click the Check Syntax button until you get the green text result.

23. Fill in the Description and Help Text with the purpose of this badge
24. Click "Next"

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked

26. Select which page layouts this badge should display on, then click "Save"

If you're not familiar with page layouts, leave all but TBQ Layout checked.

27. You just built a formula field- yay you!
28. Go to the "Accounts" tab

Click on the App Launcher, search "Account" in the Quick Find box, and click on Accounts.

29. Click on any Account with an open pledge to see what your badge looks like

If you can't come up with anyone who has an open pledge, create a new Donation linked to that account in the Pledged stage - you can go back and delete it after you have seen your badge in action.

30. If you need to move the field's location on the Account record, you can edit the page layout

You can read instructions on editing that page layout here. You'll be editing the layout on the Account.

Yay you! You just created a badge.
Member Info field for the box office (badgeless text formula)

In all our examples thus far, we're using criteria to trigger a badge image to appear in a text formula field. That's great, but what if you just want a little more detail in plain old text format? For example, what if you want to include a member's level and expiration date in the header in PatronManager Box Office, like this?

You absolutely can. Keep it short, simple, and don't forget to include all the contextual labeling in the formula itself. Here's how:

We're headed to the Contact area because that's the record page we want this badge to appear. Remember that only Contact formula fields can appear in the header in PatronManager Box Office.

2. Go to "Fields & Relationships" and click "New"
3. Click the "Formula" field type, then the "Next" button
4. Fill in the the blanks on this page
  1. Field Label: We'll name this one "Member Detail for PMBO"
  2. Formula Return Type:  Select "Text"
  3. Click "Next"
5. Next, we'll write our formula

Formulas are a powerful - and complex - tool Salesforce provides us to provide information easily based on other data. In this example, we're using a formula to concatenate text from existing fields into a single field, with descriptive labels.

Here's the formula to copy and paste:

IF(
PatronTicket__LatestBenefitExpiration__c >= (TODAY()-365),
"Member Level: "
& PatronTicket__CurrentOrMostRecentBenefitLevel__c
& ", expires "
& TEXT(MONTH(PatronTicket__LatestBenefitExpiration__c ))
& "/"
& TEXT(DAY(PatronTicket__LatestBenefitExpiration__c ))
& "/"
& TEXT(YEAR (PatronTicket__LatestBenefitExpiration__c)) ,
""
)

To break it down for clarity in case you want to customize your own version, here's what each part is doing:

  • Line 1: opens the "IF" formula.
  • Line 2: logical test. Is the latest membership expiration date greater or equal to a year before today?
  • Lines 3-10: value if true. Intersperses text (e.g. "Member Level: ") with field values (e.g. the latest membership level), and deconstructs the expiration date to format it neatly as Month/Day/Year.
  • Line 11: value if false. Display nothing if the criteria aren't met: since it's a formula, enclose nothing in quotes.
  • Line 12: closes the "IF" formula.

Want to learn more about writing formulas? Do the following trail in Salesforce's Trailhead training resource.

6. Copy and paste your formula into the text box on the screen
7. Add a description and save!

For the description, if you're copying and pasting the above formula, we recommend the following (if you adjusted the formula, adjust the description accordingly):

  • If the Contact has a membership (current or expired within the last year), displays the member level and expiration date for use in the box office.

Most likely, you can just click "Next" on this screen. If you need to restrict this field from any of your users, uncheck their user profiles here.  Leave any profiles including the word "Portal" unchecked

9. Select which page layouts this badge should display on, then click "Save"

In our example, we'll uncheck all the boxes, since we're only displaying this badge in PatronManager Box Office. On the Contact and Account pages, we have the fields the badge is based on available for display already!

10. You just built a formula field - now add it to the box office!

You'll want to add this new field to PatronManager Box Office - that was the whole point! Head over to this article to take care of that step.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Can we report on badges?

Badges are reportable! You have some different options, depending on what kind of reporting on badges you'd like to do.

Show badges in a report

If you want to show badges in a report, add the badge field to your report outline, just as you would any other field!

Report with badges

For example, in this report, we added the Member Status and Subscriber Status fields to our report, which shows the built-in Member and Subscriber badges in our report.

For more on adding fields to reports, check out our Basic Reporting Customizations!

Filter based on a badge

If you want to filter your report based on whether a badge is present or not, you can add a filter for the badge's field.

While it's possible to filter based on badges, it's tidier to filter directly on whatever is triggering the badge. That way your report is easier to interpret, and you won't obscure any potential errors in the badge formula.

For example, if you have a Major Donor badge that appears if the Amount Donated Last # Days is greater than $1,000, you could filter for the presence of the badge, or you could filter directly for "Amount Donated Last # Days is greater than $1,000". That way, if you find patrons in your report who don't have the corresponding badge, you can check your badge formula for errors - and if a colleague looks at the report, they won't have any doubts about the filter criteria.

Filter for badges

For example, in this report, we added a filter for:

Superhero Badge not equal to ""

So this report is only showing Contacts who have our custom Superhero Badge.

For more on adding filters to reports, check out our Basic Reporting Customizations!

How can we get badges to appear in the box office?

Any badges can appear in the header of PatronManager Box Office (PMBO) by adding them to the Ticket Order Contact Header Fields field set.

We've got full instructions for you here.

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