Beacon comes pre-loaded with a default set of fields for each standard record type, however this is just the start. We've found that every charity is different, so we built Beacon to be super flexible to fit your needs. You can add fields to existing record types (this article) or you can create entirely new record types.

Customisation mode is a special mode that you can enable while viewing any record in Beacon and lets you customise a record.

With customisation mode enabled, you can:

To enable customisation mode, click the cog in the top right of any record page:

Cards take care of how records of each type are displayed in Beacon. They help structure your data in a way that's easy to view and edit.

There are a few different types of cards:

To add a new card, click Add card at the bottom of your existing cards, whilst in customisation mode.

The List of fields card is the most common kind of card in Beacon. This is how you to view and edit data about records. Usually you'll want to include fields in logical groups, like so:

More details: Card: List of fields
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The List of related records card allows you to show a list of records that are related to the type of record you're viewing. For example:

Up to three related records are shown. To view all records, click view all.

These cards usually go best on the right side of your records, where it's easy to see what the record is related to at a glance.

More details: Card: List of related records

The Summary metric card shows you a single number, of the sum or average of number fields, or the number of records.

For example:

The sum total of donations a person has made.

You could just as easily show the average of the donations, or the number of donations.

More details: Card: Summary metric

The Chart card lets you visualise data related to a record in a chart.

For example, if you wanted to see supporters' donation history over time when viewing any person in Beacon, you would add the following chart:

More details: Card: chart

To edit an existing card's settings, just click the card when you're in customisation mode (but don't click an individual field).

You'll be presented with the below:

You can change the title and icon to anything you like. The Choose fields section allows you to define the fields that should belong in the card:

Additionally, you can create entirely new fields from this dialog. Learn more about the different field types.

If you have information about a record that doesn't make sense to live in one of the fields already available, you'll need to create a new field.

Changing details about a field is quick and easy. Add help text, rename a field, re-order drop-down list options, and more.

If you have a field that you don't need to see, you can simply hide the field as above. If you know that you definitely don't need the field, or any data that might exist in that field on other records, you can permanently delete it.

When deleting a field, Beacon will check if the field is currently being used in other places in your account. You'll need to remove the field from those places before being able to delete the field.

We currently check the following places in your account before deletion (we are continually adding more checks, so this list will grow in the future):

When in customisation mode, you can easily re-order fields (and cards) by drag-and-dropping them within the record. You can also drag fields between different cards!

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By default, cards on your records show all of the time (unless you remove them).

However, if you have cards that are only relevant for particular types of record, you can use visibility settings to only show a card when relevant. Example:

You're mostly using the CRM for fundraising, but you're also managing volunteer information like skills, interests, and availability. These fields sit within a "Volunteering" card, and you'd like to only show the card for people who are volunteers.

This 👆 is precisely what card visibility is for.

Once you've set card visibility settings, they will automatically show/hide based on the conditions that you've set.

If you'd like to change a card's visibility settings on a card that's currently hidden, enable customisation mode, and you'll see the following, indicating that the card is hidden:

Click the card as normal to edit its visibility settings.

You can add alerts that show at the top of your records:

There's a whole separate guide for alerts. Enjoy!

When you first set up your shiny new Beacon account, you'll be greeted with some default cards and fields that you might expect to see. Not all of them will be relevant to your organisation - it's best to remove them to prevent any confusion! You can choose to either hide them or delete them.

[info] Hiding fields from your cards does not delete the fields (or the underlying data), it simply doesn't display them. Deleting a field will remove both the field and the underlying data.

Every organisation has their own terminology. For example, do you use the term "appeal" instead of "campaign"? If so - we strongly recommend that you change field labels to reflect this.

Additionally - it can be very helpful to add help text to clarify what specific fields mean:

If you're like many organisations, you'll want to manage a wide variety of data in your CRM. For example, if you wanted to track volunteer-specific information (e.g. "Reasons for volunteering") separately from donor-specific information (e.g. "Project interests"), you could create separate sections for each.

We'd also recommend using card visibility to only show these cards when relevant.

Yes!

In your sidebar scroll to your Settings > Record types. Here, you will see a list of all of your different record types, including a column for the number of custom fields you've created for each one.

If you then click on each different record type, and scroll to the very bottom of the page, you'll see a list of your custom fields. This will include their name, field type, and any help text where relevant.