Dropdown List Customization and Maintenance¶

Dropdown lists (also known as look-up tables) have a pre-defined list, or table, of entries that you can choose from when entering data. Dropdown lists have a down-arrow attached to their right edge and a list of entries appears when you click the down-arrow.

Examples of dropdown lists include:

• The Title, Status, State, and Type and Flags fields on the Core tab
• The Gender field on the Profile tab
• The Assignment field on a service entry

Many of the dropdown fields are created by you in the Setup pages. However, some fields (such as the Assignment dropdown) are created by the system from the information in your account. In this case, to change the list you will need to make the change on the Assignment page. This help topic deals with the type of dropdown lists created in Setup.

Fields with dropdown lists look like this:

Occasionally you may need to maintain these tables by adding new entries, correcting the spelling of an entry, merging entries, or deleting entries. To perform any of these functions, you first need to know two things:

• The name of the field you would like to customize.
• The name of the tab that contains the field.

For example, the Date of birth field is located on the Profile tab on volunteer records. The list of all fields includes all of the fields in the system along with the tab the field appears on. The image below gives an example of how the Date of birth field is located on the Profile tab of volunteer records:

To Manage a Dropdown List¶

1. Choose Setup from the menu.
2. Expand Field Options. A list of all the tabs in Volgistics appears.
3. Select the tab that contains the dropdown list you'd like to edit. A list of all the fields located on this tab appears.
4. Click the field you would like to customize. The Field Properties window opens.

5. Use the Drop down table items section to manage the dropdown list.

   

The Status field is a unique and important field so we recommend reviewing the information in the Important Information About Merging Statuses section below if you'll be merging items in the Status dropdown list.

Add a New Dropdown List Entry¶

To add a new item to the dropdown list for the field:

1. Choose Setup from the menu.
2. Expand Field Options. A list of all the tabs in Volgistics appears.
3. Select the tab that contains the dropdown list you'd like to edit. A list of all the fields located on this tab appears.
4. Click the field you would like to customize. The Field Properties window opens.
5. Type your new entry into the Add a new item field.
6. Click the Save button.
7. Repeat steps 5 & 6 for any other new entries you need to make.
8. Click the Save button at the top or bottom of the page to exit.

Change a Dropdown List Entry¶

To change or edit a dropdown list entry:

1. Choose Setup from the menu.
2. Expand Field Options. A list of all the tabs in Volgistics appears.
3. Select the tab that contains the dropdown list you'd like to edit. A list of all the fields located on this tab appears.
4. Click the field you would like to customize. The Field Properties window opens.
5. Edit the item to make the needed changes.
6. Click the Save button at the top or bottom of the page to exit.

Merge Dropdown List Entries¶

Occasionally you may need to combine two or more dropdown list entries together. For example, you may discover that two different entries in the Type field actually have the same meaning (e.g. Junior and Jr.). Follow these steps to merge two dropdown entries:

1. Choose Setup from the menu.
2. Expand Field Options. A list of all the tabs in Volgistics appears.
3. Select the tab that contains the dropdown list you'd like to edit. A list of all the fields located on this tab appears.
4. Choose the field you would like to customize. The Field Properties window opens.
5. Click the Merge button by the entry you'd like to merge into another.
6. Select the entry you'd like to merge the current entry into from the dropdown list.
7. Click the Go button to merge the entries. Click the Cancel button if you do not want to continue.

Volgistics will combine the first dropdown list entry you selected into the second one. For example, if you clicked the Merge button by Jr. in step 5, and you selected Junior in step 6, any record that previously contained the entry Jr. will now have the entry Junior instead. The old entry will no longer appear as an option in this dropdown field.

Delete a Dropdown List Entry¶

You may want to delete an entry from the dropdown field completely. If a volunteer record has the entry you delete selected, the field will be blank after the entry is deleted. To delete a dropdown entry:

1. Choose Setup from the menu.
2. Expand Field Options. A list of all the tabs in Volgistics appears.
3. Select the tab that contains the dropdown list you'd like to edit. A list of all the fields located on this tab appears.
4. Click the field you would like to customize. The Field Properties window opens.
5. Locate the entry you would like to delete.
6. Click the Delete button.

The important thing to remember is deleting an entry from the dropdown list will also remove any instances of that entry from all volunteer records. Sometimes it is more appropriate to merge one dropdown list entry into another rather than deleting it. When you merge items, volunteers will still have something selected for the field instead of a blank.

Important Information About Merging Statuses¶

Merging Statuses can have two effects on your account. It may delete Status date entries from the volunteer's History tab, and it may also delete the volunteer's schedule. Please take time to review the information below before merging Statuses.

Because many organizations use the Status to track things such as recruitment statistics, the system deletes Status dates if the merge makes two date records with the same Status in a row. For instance, let's say a volunteer has the following Status dates recorded on her History tab:

If the organization decides the custom Passed Status is not necessary, and they merge Passed into Active, the volunteer would have an Active Status date on March 22, 2017 and another on May 17, 2017 without having a date for a different Status in between. So if the organization runs a Status Statistics (stock) report and relies on the Became Active count to show how many volunteers started serving each month, the same volunteer would count in the March and the May totals. If this happened to a majority of records in your database, it will make a drastic impact on your onboarding statistics. To prevent this, the system deletes the most recent date so the volunteer's Status date history will now look like this:

Now the volunteer will only count in the onboarding statistics once.

The system does not delete Status dates for the same Status if there is a date for a different Status between the two. For instance, if a volunteer had a Passed Status date on April 30, 2015, an Inactive Status date on June 11, 2016, and an Active Status date on May 17, 2017. In this case, if the Passed Status is merged into the Active Status, her date history would look like this:

In this case, the volunteer's Status date history was not altered when Statuses are merged because the result does not leave two Active Status dates in a row.

Changing a volunteer's Status may also completely remove her from the schedule. For example, your account may be set up to remove a volunteer from the schedule if her Status is changed to a certain Status such as Inactive. In most cases this is desirable because you can't depend on an inactive volunteer to show up when scheduled. In some cases, organizations may not want to remove the schedule when a volunteer's Status changes. Or, you may want to check to be sure a Status such as Active has not been accidentally set to remove the schedule. You can do this by:

1. Select Setup from the menu.
2. Expand on Scheduling.
3. Click on Ground Rules.
4. Review and/or update the selections in the Volunteer status section.
5. If you make a change, remember to click the Save button.

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