Contact Methods

The list of Communication Methods are used when Recording Contacts (Contact Method and Response Method). It is also used in Clubs and Clinics if the club/clinic/group is set to save completed attendances into the client's History, and on organisation/person Details screens for the "Preferred Method Of Communication" field.

Creating/editing Communication Methods

Clicking on the menu item will show you all the Communication Methods set up on your system. Click the "Create New Method" button to create a new one (or click the name of an existing one to edit it).

You can now enter the following data:

• Communication Method (name)
• Is this an email method? - this setting governs whether emails or letters are created to people if this method is selected as their Preferred Method of Communication.
• Is this a newsletter delivery method? - this setting governs whether this method can be used as a delivery method in the (deprecated) Newsletter Project feature.
• Display Order
• Contact In or Contact Out? - there is a special KPI report for this, "Number of Contacts By Contact Method Inwards or Outwards".
• Active Method? - whether the method is available for use on the system or not.

Reporting Outputs

Information entered against the list of Communication Methods is available in numerous reports and outputs:

• On Data Extractions as a filter and an output (Preferred Method of Communication)
• In the KPI Report Designer as a filter (e.g. Contacts By Contact Method, Referrals By Contact Method)
• In the KPI Report Designer on outputs - most contact-based KPI reports include it, as do the "Full Data Extract Of Contacts" and "Full Data Extract Of Referrals" KPI reports
• From the Blue Folder Lookup screen as part of Extra Referral Data

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Rob Kay - manual author (talk) 14:48, 23 April 2015 (BST)