Tailor the Application to Meet Unique Needs

ResearchPoint provides a wide variety of features that allow you to tailor application behavior to better satisfy your organization’s specific needs. Many of these features support data configuration and business rules that may apply across your organization.

• Code Tables

Code tables increase data entry speed and accuracy throughout the program. When users enter information into a field with a code table, they can quickly access a list of possible entries for that field to select an entry rather than type it manually.

Code tables also help maintain consistency in your data entry. For example, when users add a new constituent phone number, one may enter “Cell Phone” as a phone type, another may enter “Mobile,” and yet another may enter “Cell.” To prevent this inconsistency and ease the interpretation and retrieval of information from your database in queries and reports, you can enter your organization’s accepted phone types in Code Tables and limit the rights of your users to add and edit table entries. For more information, see the Manage Code Tables chapter in the Administration Guide.

• Notifications

Notifications allow you to share important information about a record or a group of records with users. You can determine whether all users should receive a notification or only a targeted group of users. For example, you may want all users to receive a notification when they open the record of a board member. For more information, see the Configuration Tasks chapter in the Administration Guide.

• Attribute Categories

Attributes provide flexibility to your record keeping. With attributes, you can define and store special information about a wide variety of record types. You can identify a category for the attribute and then store an entry specific to that category.

For example, if a constituent is a gourmet cook and a cyclist, a user can enter each activity in the constituent’s record with an attribute category of Hobbies. This helps keep attributes neatly organized and helps with reports and queries. For more information, see the Attribute Categories chapter in the Administration Guide.

• Export

When you export data from the program, you extract information from the database and send it to another place, usually another software application. For example, you may want to take information from the program into a spreadsheet program for further analysis. In Export, you select the query of records to export and specify the format for the exported data. You can also schedule an export process to run at the time most convenient for your organization, such as overnight. For more information, see the Export chapter in the Query & Export Guide.

• Import

With Import, you can easily move data from one program to another. Import is particularly useful if your organization maintains multiple databases or if you often move information in and out of the database.

In Import, you can create a batch to enter new records into the database or update existing records. You can create an import file with an outside application, such as Microsoft Excel. When you select the file to import, you can map each header of the file with its corresponding fields in the batch. The fields necessary to import or update information depend on the selected batch design. For more information, see the Import chapter in the Import and Batch Guide.

• Batch data entry

Batch entry allows you to enter and update information on records quickly because you do not open each individual record. Instead, you create a batch design to specify the fields to add or update in each various type of record. The program lists the selected fields as fields in a spreadsheet, called a batch, so you can efficiently enter information in the database. When you create a batch design, you also select a batch workflow, which defines the process a batch goes through to add or update its records in your database. For more information, see the Batch Entry chapter in the Import and Batch Guide

• Global Changes

The Global changes functionality allows you to make select changes to a specific group of records in your system. For example, trustees for your organization are rotated annually, so every year you have to remove the “Trustee” constituency from all previous year trustees. Using a selection of your previous year trustees, you can use the “Delete user-defined constituency” definition included in Global changes and remove the “Trustee” constituency from all expired trustees’ records. For more information, see the Global Change chapter in the Administration Guide.

Note: For more information about setting up ResearchPoint to better meet your specific needs, see all chapters in the Administration Guide.