Individual Setup

On the Customer Setup page, click the Individual tab.

The following are the procedures for setting up the drop-down lists in the Individual tab.

Prefixes

Prefix
The title that appears before an individual's name.

Example: Dr., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Prof., Col.

To Add a Prefix:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the prefix child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Name Prefix window, enter the prefix.
  5. Click Save to add the prefix to the prefix drop-down list on the Add - Individual page.

Suffixes

Suffix
The abbreviation or title that appears after an individual's name.

Example: Jr., Sr., II, III, MD., Esq.

To Add a Suffix:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the suffix child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Name Suffix window, enter the suffix.
  5. Click Save .
  6. The suffix will be added to the drop-down list on the Add - Individual page.

Individual Type

Individual Types
These allow you to create categories for individuals. You can assign an individual type when you add an individual record, or later, by editing the individual record (Click the Edit Name & Address button).

Example: press, speaker, exhibitor, staff, student, etc.

Note: Do not add "member," "non-member" or "member types" to this list. These options belong in the member type drop-down list. Also, once the Individual Type is used in the system, the edit and delete buttons will no longer display in the child form.

To Add an Individual Type:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the individual type child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Individual Type window, enter the individual type.
  5. Click Save to add the individual type to the individual type drop-down list on the Add - Individual page.

The Individual Type can be used as a product or event registration fee price attributes. Price attributes allow you to offer a special or discounted prices to a certain type of individual or organization (e.g., membership discount for students, free event for the press, etc.). To offer a special price to a type of individual, the individual type must be recorded on the Individual Profile and must be set up as a price attribute on the product.

Note: if a particular individual type is not editable, this is because that type is currently assigned to one or more individuals. The record is made non-editable to ensure that the value is not changed, which would affect existing individuals who have that code.

Interest Codes

Interest Codes
These may be used to record additional information about the individual and his or her areas of interest that may or may not be related to their given profession. (architect, engineer, lawyer, professor, volunteering, sports, etc.).

Adding an Interest Code

To add an Interest Code, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the interest code child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Interest Codes window, enter the interest code.
  5. Enter a description for the special interest.
  6. Click Save to add the interest code to the interest code drop-down list on the Add - Individual page.

Name interest codes thoughtfully, especially if you might allow individuals to self select interest codes online.

Adding a Parent Interest Code

Adding a Parent Interest Code to an Interest Code allows you to establish a hierarchy of interests and relate "like" interests together.

To add an interest code with a parent interest, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the interest code child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Interest Codes window, enter the interest code.
  5. Enter a description for the special interest.
  6. Select an appropriate choice from the parent interest drop-down menu.
  7. Click Save to add the interest code to the interest code drop-down list on the Add - Individual page.

    When looking at the interest codes child form, you will see the newly added interest code along with its parent code displayed.

Languages

Languages may be set up to note the languages an individual is proficient with. Setting up languages will put them in a drop-down menu that can be added to the languages child form on both the individual and surveyor profiles.

To set up languages, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the languages child form, click the Add icon.

    This will open the Add - Language pop-up window.

  4. Enter the name of the language in the language field.
  5. Click the Save button.

    The newly added language will now be available in the languages drop-down menu used to add languages to individual and surveyor profiles.

Areas of Expertise

Areas of Expertise are used to record additional information about the individual and what areas they are an expert at within a given profession.

Adding an Area of Expertise

To add an area of expertise, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the areas of expertise child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Areas of Expertise window, enter the category.
  5. Enter a subcategory for the category. Use a comma to separate each subcategory.
  6. Click Save to add the category and sub categories drop-down lists on the Add - Individual page.

Designations

Individuals may have a professional designation assigned to their record. Examples of designations would be CPA, CFP, CFA, etc.

There are two system options that control how designations can be set up. These system options are:

  • SetIndividualDesignationFromDesignationCodes - If set to "false", users may free-text any designations they want and the system will not add designation codes. The default value for this system option should be set to "false" for current clients to retain the current behavior, but set to "true" for new clients (netFORUM 2013 and beyond.)
  • EnableAutoCreationOfNewIndividualDesignations - If set to "true", when a user enters a designation code (during setup) and it does not already exist the system will automatically add it to the setup table. If set to "false", users will be presented with an error message indicating their code is invalid and it will not be automatically added to the setup table. The default value should be "false".

Below is a table showing the different behaviors based on the possible combinations of settings for these two system options:

System Option Value System Option Value Result
SetIndividualDesignationFromDesignationCodes False EnableAutoCreationOfNewIndividualDesignations False netFORUM will allow free-text entry of any value in the individual designation field, and will not validate entries or insert entries into designation code lookup table. (This is the way netFORUM has worked in 2011 and earlier.)
SetIndividualDesignationFromDesignationCodes False EnableAutoCreationOfNewIndividualDesignations True If the value of SetIndividualDesignationFromDesignationCodes is "false", then the value of EnableAutoCreationOfNewIndividualDesignations is irrelevant, even if it is "true". Using these settings will allow free-text entry of designation and will not validate them or create them. This configuration is the same as setting both system options to "false".
SetIndividualDesignationFromDesignationCodes True EnableAutoCreationOfNewIndividualDesignations False netFORUM will validate entries in the individual designation field, but will not automatically create new ones if a user enters a designation that does not currently exist in the lookup table. If user enters an unknown designation, then they will get an error. This option should be used if you want to validate entries, but still want to keep a tight control over the insertion of new designation codes.
SetIndividualDesignationFromDesignationCodes True EnableAutoCreationOfNewIndividualDesignations True This combination of options will both validate the individual designation(s) that are typed in, and insert new ones if a designation code that is entered does not exist in the lookup table. One possible drawback to this is that users may enter duplicates (Ph.D. and PHD, for example). A data integrity analyst should monitor the creation of new designation codes and periodically merge the "wrong" ones ("PHD") into the "right" ones ("Ph.D.").

Adding a Designation

To add a designation, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Customer Setup page.
  2. Select the Individual tab, if it is not already selected.
  3. On the designations child form, click the Add button.
  4. In the Add - Designation pop-up window, enter the designation.
  5. Enter a description for the designation. For example, for the CFA designation, the description might list what that acronym stands for; in this case Certified Financial Analyst.
  6. Enter the display order. This sets the rank order of designations should an individual have more than one. Those designations with a lower (numeric) display order will display first on a profile.

    For example, if you would like the "CFP" designation to be displayed first, then give the CFP designation a low display order number.

    If the CFP designation has a display order setting of 10 and the MBA designation is set to 20, then the display name will be "Ron Boggs, CFP, MBA". However, if the CFP designation display order is set to 10 and the MBA designation is set to 5, then the display will be "Ron Boggs, MBA, CFP".

  7. Click Save to add the designation drop-down list on the Add - Certification Program page.

The designation awarded upon completion field has been changed from a free text field to a drop-down field to prevent possible data mistakes.