ChilliDB Basics Quick Start: Organisations

Alongside contacts, adding organisations to your system is another important process related to the tracking of data you require. As Contacts and Organisations are intrinsically linked in ChilliDB, with all other sections in the system linking back to one, or both, of these, making sure your organisational data is as complete and accurate as it can be is a key driver in being able to extract the information you require.

This article will talk through the basic process of creating an organisation and adding it to your ChilliDB system using the fields available to a user when they first log in. Please follow the links that feature in various places throughout the article if you require more detailed information about some of the more advanced options available when creating organisations in ChilliDB.

Considerations Before Creating an Organisation

1. Are your organisations' categorisations set up? Categorisation is a key part of record creation in ChilliDB. Almost every record you create will require categorisation. As such, before you create an organisation, you will want to make sure you have the organisation categorisations you require in place so they can be applied to the new records you are creating. If you haven't yet set up these categorisations in your system, please read our 'ChilliDB Admin Essentials: Customising Reference Data' article first to learn how to do so.

   
   

2. Are the necessary fields in place? To to collect the data you require for your organisations, the fields allowing you to do so will also need to be in place first. If this is not the case, please read our 'ChilliDB Admin Quick Start: Custom Fields' article on creating custom fields first to learn how to set up sections and fields in ChilliDB.

Note: if you have a IT admin person, or a dedicated ChilliDB system admin person, at your organisation, check with them first before adding any categorisations or custom fields to your system.

Creating an Organisation in ChilliDB

Step 1: Navigate to the create organisation option in ChilliDB

This is done by clicking on the Organisations main menu item and then selecting 'Create'.

Step 2: Add New Organisation Details

After clicking the 'Create' option in the Organisations menu, a new window opens that allows the user to record the details of the new organisation and save them in the system. The fields we see available in the screenshot below are the ChilliDB base system fields for an organisation, however users are able to add their own custom fields to collect data against as well (as per item no.2 in the 'Considerations Before Creating an Organisation' section above).

Creating an Organisation record

As indicated by the 'Note' above, any fields with a red triangle next to them are required, and thus data must be input before saving a record. One key required field to be aware of at this stage is:

1) Categorisation: every record in ChilliDB features categorisation as a required field. When first starting out with the system, there will be a few categorisations available to users to choose from that are preset. If these categorisations do to meet your needs, you are able to create your own - see item no.1 in the 'Considerations Before Creating an Organisation' section above to find out how to do so.

Once the key data required has been recorded, click 'Save' to complete the addition of the new organisation.

To view an in-depth overview of the system fields visible when creating a new organisation record, see our 'ChilliDB Basics: Organisations - System Field Type Glossary'.

Viewing an Organisation

After an organisation has been saved, users will be taken to the Organisation Details overview screen. This is the same screen users will see if they search for an organisation and click on their record. The organisation display page features two sections containing information about the organisation:

i) Organisation Record Details: this is an overview of the information that you entered when creating the organisation in the top half of the screen.

ii) Organisation tabs: this section features a row of tabs that either pull in information recorded against the organisation in other modules (sections) in ChilliDB; or that allow you to add further information to the organisation. The advantage of having certain types of information collected in tab format is that a user can create multiple instances of the same type of data. For example, when creating notes for an organisation, it gives us the ability to create a note on a given date and have that note stored against the organisation. We can then go back and create a different note on a different date and have both notes stored as separate instances against the organisation. Normal fields do not allow you to do this.

Below the Organisation Details overview is a row of tabs (see above - 'Organisation Tabs') that can be used to add additional data to the record. Some of this data is pulled in from other modules when the organisation is linked to a record in that section. For example, if an organisation is added to a membership in the Membership module, the key information is copied across into the 'Membership' tab in the organisation record. However, users are also able to add data directly into an organisation's record under these tabs by simple clicking on the 'Create' button that appears on the right-hand side of the tab window. In the screenshot above, we are in the 'Contacts' tab. We know this because it is currently blue. If we wished to add a contact directly to this organisation's record in our system, we could simply click on the 'Find Contact' or 'Create' buttons to do so, rather than go through the Notes module via the main menu at the top of the page.

To learn more about interacting with the tabs available on the Organisation Details display screen, please see our 'Working With Organisation Tabs' article.

Editing / Expiring an Organisation

To edit an organisation in ChilliDB, simply find the organisation record in your system (typically done via the Organisation main menu - Search option) and then click on the Organisation name to access their details. Once on the Organisation Details page, click the 'Edit' link in the top right-hand corner of the screen to edit the organisation's details.

After the 'Edit' link has been clicked, the fields open to allow you to make any changes. The 'Edit' link will have also changed to an 'Expire' link should you want to expire the organisation record.

For a more detailed explanation of editing/expiring organisations, please see our 'ChilliDB Basics: Editing / Expiring Organisations article

Further Information

i) To find out more about the options available to you in the 'Actions' menu on the Organisations Details screen see our 'Organisations - Action Menu ' article.

ii) Looking to search for an organisation you have created? The 'ChilliDB Basics Quick Start: Search' article will outline how to do this. For further information on the options available under the dropdown arrow in the top right-hand corner of the search results list, see the 'ChilliDB Basics: Search - Interacting With Search Results' article.

iii) Need information on ABN validation for Organisations? Read our 'Organisation ABN Validation' article.

We hope you have found this Organisations Quick Start article useful. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch, either through our Help Desk or by contacting us at info@chillidb.com