Attaching Custom Forms to Records in the Admin

Sometimes it's necessary to gather custom information about a person. A common scenario might be tracking how many days of the week a preschooler is signed up for, or what sports an enrolled student is participating in that year. This article will walk you through how to attach Custom Forms to records in BigSIS.

Strategizing Where to Put Your Data

Before we begin, let's talk a little about strategy. Whenever you place a Custom Form somewhere, whether it's in the Person Record, Student Record, Donor Profile etc, you always want to ask yourself two questions:

1. Will I need to filter for this data?
2. If I need to filter for this data, where is the best place to put it?

To answer these questions, let's look at People, Student, and Enrollment Records and talk about their strengths.

Person Record: Contains information pertaining to a person like "Language Spoken at Home" or "T-Shirt Size." Filter Example: Show me all 6th graders with a medium shirt size.

Student Record: Contains information pertaining to a student. Note that this record is static and only shows the most updated data. A student only gets one student record so any data you put here should be data where only the most recent data matters. The Student Record is a great place for data like SAT scores. You can only ever have one score, and the most recent one is what matters the most. Filter Example: Show me a list of all seniors with SAT scores entered.

Enrollment Record: Contains information pertaining to the enrollment. Whereas a student only gets one Student Record, they get an Enrollment Record for each year that they are enrolled. Enrollment Records are great for things like sports where the data will change from year to year. One year a student may be in soccer, the next they may be in baseball. Filter Example: Show me all 8th graders who played women's volleyball in the Fall of 2016.

*You can get very specific with enrollment record custom forms. Often people make the mistake of putting this data in the Student Record when it would be much more useful in the Enrollment Record in regards to filtering capabilities. 

Attaching a Custom Form to Specific Person Records

From the People Table:

1. Select the records that need the Custom Form (you probably have to run a filter first).
2. Click the Other Actions button.
3. Select Attach Custom Form.
4. Select the appropriate Custom Form.

Attaching a Custom Form to ALL Records

From the Dashboard:

1. Go to System > Settings > Client Settings OR use the dashboard shortcut.
   
2. Click the Custom Forms tab. All the available records will display. Click the drop-down of the appropriate record and select the Custom Form you want to attach.