Contact Management Service Type & Resource Type Filtering

Introduction

When multiple disciplines utilize your database (Member management, development, volunteer management, etc.), your list of "Service Types" can grow rather large and make it difficult to pick the correct service type for each contact entry. This article describes the process for assigning each service type to one or more contact management categories and each Resource type to one or more "Service Types" to enable the pick list to be filtered to list only the types applicable to the selected options.  

Service Type/Resource Type Pick List Set Up

The hierarchy that determines which resource types are available for each service type and which service types are available for each category are defined In Reference Data Management. Here, you can set up the Contact Management Service Type entries that are to appear for each Contact Management Category and each Resource Type entry that is to appear for each Service Type entry.

To do this for Service Types: expand the Contact Management Service Type entries and highlight each one in turn, selecting the Contact Management Category(s) under which the Service Type will be available:

To do this for Resource Types: expand the Contact Management Resource Type entries and highlight each one in turn. selecting the Contact Management Service Type(s) under which the Resource Type will be available:

In the image below, the "Meal Assistance" resource type is being added to the option list for each of 4 different Contact Service Types.

Using the Filtered Service Type Pick List

Once the filtering has been set up in Reference Data Management, when adding or editing a contact management entry, you will only see the "Service Type" list of items that were assigned to the selected category and Resource Types assigned to the selected Service Type.

If an entry was previously selected and is no longer in the filtered list for the selected category or service type, it will remain selected and valid, but it will show as red text to indicate that it is not a currently available option.

If a Contact Management Category in reference data does not have any Service Types assigned to it, then all service types in the list will display in the pick list.  This is also true for Resource types.