Heads up! This is a guide for admins. If you're not an admin yet, ask your Beacon admin to promote you so you can start managing fields.
Sometimes, viewing a supporter's first and last donation can tell you a lot about their journey with your organisation. This handy guide will show you how to use rollup fields and smart fields to get all the details. Let's dive in!
By the end of this article you'll be able to create rollup fields like a pro and show information like this on your donors' records:
Note: To learn more about rollup fields click here
What are Rollup fields?
Rollup fields are fields that "roll up" (summarise) data from other related records. For example roll up fields can add up all of the Payment records related to a Payer or call up the first/ last payment related to that payer.
In this example, we will use them to summarise payment data related to the 'Person' record type. We will demonstrate two different ways to utilise a rollup field:
Display a person's first payment
Display a person's most recent payment
How to create a Rollup field
Step 1: Add a field
You'll begin by adding a field in the same way you would normally. For more detail on how to enter customisation mode and add a field click here.
In short, the steps are:
Head over to the People record type and click into any person's record
Click on the cog icon ⚙️ in the top right of the page to enter customisation mode
Click on the blank space at the top of the card you'd like to add the rollup field to
Select Create a new field
Select Point to another record as the field type
Enable the Is rollup field? toggle
Step 2: Roll up first payment or last payment
Once you have enabled the Is rollup field? toggle, a list of options will appear:
Summarise record type does what it says on the tin: "Which record type would you like to summarise?" (In our case Payments)
Related field refers to the manner in which the payments are linked to the person. As standard, there are 2 fields on payment record that can link to the person:
The Payer field (used when the person is the payment's payer)
The Fundraiser field (used when the person is the payment's fundraiser 😉)
Type of summary refers to whether you want to surface the first or last payment record
Once you select the Type of summary, you will be prompted with the Sorting field dropdown
First payment field set up
First of all you'll want to create the roll up field following the steps here.
Below you'll see an image of how you would want to set up the field to roll up the person's first payment (oldest):
Here's what it will look like when created:
Last payment field set up
First of all you'll want to create the roll up field following the steps here.
Below you'll see an image of how you would want to set up the field to roll up the person's last payment (most recent):
Here's what it will look like when created:
How to make use of a rollup field
Once you have successfully set up your rollup fields, following the steps shown above, you now have the capability to reference any field from the linked payment record. There are a couple of handy ways to make use of these fields we've created. We'll focus on two uses:
How to export details of a person's first/ last payment (for example, Payment date)
How to view details of a person's first/ last payment on the People record type list view
How to export details of a person's first/ last payment
This new functionality is especially useful when you are exporting from the People record type. Now, any field from the linked payment record can be accessed and referenced with ease.
Let's try to export the amount and payment date of the person's most recent payment alongside other details about the person.
Setting up the export template
In your export template, you can now use the rollup field as a pathway to reference. Set up an export template from the People record type. Then simply choose the Payment record type via the rollup field we've just created. Now you have access to any field on this payment 👍
Here's what it will look like when adding the amount and payment date columns to your export template:
Notice how we are exporting 2 fields from the Person record and 2 fields from the person's first Payment record. The same process will work for any field you want to export from the linked Payment record!
How to view details of a person's first/ last payment on the People list view
Sometimes, you want to get a quick overview of your donors at a glance. For example, your charity wants to be able to view a donor's first payment date alongside other details about the person. Here's how to get that set up!
Here's what it would look like in the People list view page:
And here's what it would look like on the Person's record:
Step 1: Create the rollup field
Create the rollup field linking the Person's first payment to their Person record exactly the same as we did here
Step 2: Create the smart field
Once this has been created, we can now access any field on the linked record via a smart field. Create a new field and make sure the Is smart field? checkbox is enabled:
Step 3: Set the formula
Click on the <> icon on the right side of the formula box to display a list of available reference fields.
Select the field from the linked record you want to display on this record:
That's it! You now have your donor's first payment date on their Person record 😄
The same process can be followed to reference any field from any linked record on this record 👍