Creating new fields and tabs in Contact records
In Sumac, you have hundreds of fields available to you to capture important information. Many organizations want to customize the fields in Sumac to make things work best for their needs. This is especially true in Contact records, where many organizations want need to add new fields to capture information that is unique to their needs.
For this reason, Sumac provides a feature called "Extra Fields," allowing you to add your own fields to Contact records, and create new tabs to display these fields!
To add Extra Fields to Contact records, log into Sumac as an Administrator. From your main Sumac console, go to Utilities > Customize Database > Field Values. Choose the Area: Contacts, then choose the Field Values: Extra Fields.
As an example, perhaps you want to create a new field to store link to a contact's Facebook Profile. Click "New" to add a new field, and Sumac presents you with the following window:
Field in Contact record: Sumac has a limit of 60 Extra Fields. Use this drop-down menu to choose which Extra field will be used for the Facebook Profile field. Usually, you'll choose the next available field (the number is arbitrary, but it's a helpful way to see how many Extra Fields you have available to you).
Name in Dialogs: This is the visible name of the field that will be displayed to your users when looking at a Contact record. For example, perhaps the field should appear with the label "Facebook Profile."
Name in Templates: The "Name in Templates" field allows you to give this field a mail merge code. This is helpful in case you ever want to merge this field into a letter when mailing to your contacts. It's a good idea to use something very similar to what you entered into "Name in Dialogs," using underscores instead of spaces (e.g. facebook_profile).
Dialog Tab Name: This is the name of the tab our new field will be displayed on in the Contact record. You can place this new field on an existing tab if you'd like. For example, to place the new Facebook Profile field on the Residence Address tab, type "Residence Address" here.
Alternatively, if you want to place this field on a brand new tab, type the name of that new tab here. For example, to create a brand new tab for storing all social media details for a contact, type "Social Media" here. This will create a new "Social Media" tab in Contact records.
Entry Order: The entry order is the order in which this field will appear on the tab. It's a good idea to use increments of 10 here so that in the future, you easily could place a new field between two existing fields.
Data Type: This is where we decide the type of data this field will store. Sumac allows you to store all kinds of data: text, dates, drop-down menus, checkbox groups, and more.
For the Facebook Profile field, choose "Text With Link Button" - this creates a text field where you can paste the URL to a contact's Facebook profile, and a link icon so you can easily go to that page from their contact record!
Formula or Value List: If your new field will be a drop-down menu or checkbox group, enter the values you want to see in that drop-down menu or checkbox group here. Separate each option with a semicolon.
Visible only to users who can see sensitive data: If this field stores highly sensitive or confidential data, put a check mark here to be sure that only users who have the permission to see sensitive data have access to this field.
Once you have entered all the details for the new field, let’s click OK to save it.
Once you're done, the new field is immediately available in your Contact records!
To see how to add your own fields and tabs to contact records in your Sumac database, check out the video below:
NOTE: The video below shows a slightly older version of Sumac. In a recent release, Lookup Lists was renamed to Field Values:
Our products got an upgrade!
Some screenshots and help videos have been made using older versions of our products. Though your version's colours and themes may appear different than what you see here, the instructions, links and advice in this article are still accurate and useful!
Related Articles
What is in a Contact Record?
Contact records store core information for each contact in your database. To open a contact's record, double-click the contact in the Contacts list. You'll notice there are several tabs across the top of the contact record for storing different kinds ...How to create a Contact and add information about them
In Sumac, a contact could be a person, organization, business, or even a family. A contact's record stores core information about who they are and their relationship with your organization. Creating a new Contact record To add a new contact click ...How to personalize your favourite records when using Add to Contact
In the Sumac Contact list, the Add to Contact button allows you to add new records of many different types to a contact showing in your Contact list. The Add to Contact button is also available within every contact's record, on the History tab. When ...What is a Contact?
In Sumac, a contact could be a person, organization, business, or even a family that you have entered in your database. A contact's record stores core information about who they are, and their relationship(s) with your organization. To open a ...How to personalize the tabs that show in Contact records
In Sumac, Contact records are organized by several tabs across the top of the record. It's common that organization's want to hide any tabs they are not using. This is a great way to streamline your database and narrow in on the areas of Sumac your ...
Societ Academy
Learn what you need to know, any time. Free!
- High quality training on demand - sessions are available every day, so you can access training that fits into your schedule.
- Training sessions that are easy to follow - helpful tips throughout each session, and access to training moderators ensure your questions get answered.
- A certificate of completion - you can request a certificate of completion for every session you attend.