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:

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:

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:

Once you have enabled the Is rollup field? toggle, a list of options will appear:

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:

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:

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:

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.

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!

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:

Create the rollup field linking the Person's first payment to their Person record exactly the same as we did here

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:

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 👍