Frequently Asked Questions
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Click Here to download the FAQ in Micrsoft Word format. (Includes pictures)
What is grouping and how do I do it?
How do I sort by more than one column?
How do I use Custom/User Defined Fields?
How do I print just a selection of contacts?
How do I export my data to excel?
How do I make a list of all individuals from ‘Orange County’ who have given more than $500 to the campaign, grouped by city? (Advanced filter example)
How do I can I highlight contacts who have given more than $100? (Automatic Formatting)
How do I change the font of my lists?
Why & how do I create an affiliation between contacts?
How do I view all contacts affiliated with a business?
I want to see Email addresses in my list. Where is it?
A button appeared that says “Email Changes”. What is this?
A button appeared that says “Conflicts?”. What is this?
What is "Householding" and how do I use it.
What kind of Call Sheets can I use?
What is grouping and how do I do it?
Grouping is used to “bunch up” records based on shared criteria. To have all contacts with the same cities to grouped together, for example. To group records together you can use the toolbar button, Menu, or Right-Clicking on a Column Header. With the toolbar button, you can simply drag and drop columns into the Group By area. With the Menu option, you explicitly define your columns in a window.
How do I sort by more than one column?
Sorting by columns can be done simple by clicking on the column header you want to sort by, but if you want to sort by multiple columns you must use the Menu. Choose Change-Sort. This results in a window where you can define your sort ordering.
How do I use Custom Fields?
Custom Fields allow a campaign to track additional contact data than is supplied by Durkee & Associates. Pledge tracking, fundraising codes, Birthdays, etc. You can have an unlimited number of custom fields, and call them anything you like. First you must define your custom fields. You do this in Settings (on the Toolbar). Enter your field name(s), pressing enter after each. Click OK to save the changes. After this you will be able to add data in these fields via the contact detail window, or the main view itself. You can filter and sort on the fields just like any other, to allow for lists customized via your own data.
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How do I print just a selection of contacts?
To print just a selection on contact, just highlight the contacts you want to include in the main view. To do this, hold Control and click on all contacts you’d like included. Only highlighted contacts will print.
How do I export my data to excel?
ContribuTrac supports exporting data to a comma-delimited file for import into Excel. All data that is currently visible in the main view will export. For example, if field address is hidden, it will not export. This way you are able to export only data you need. To export, simply click on Export in the toolbar.
How do I make a list of all individuals from ‘Orange County’ who’ve given more than $500 to the campaign?
This example details a very powerful feature of ContribuTrac called Filtering. Filtering allows you to control exactly which contacts appear in your lists. They work nearly instantly, and you can be as specific as you like. Filters can be set up by choosing Change, Filter View. This brings up the Filter View dialog, where you can create filters. For the above example, you would click New, then specify ‘County’ for the field, ‘Equal’ for the condition, and ‘Orange’ as the Value. To further narrow the list to just contacts who have given more than 500, you would add another filter by clicking New, then specifying ‘Amount’ for the field, ‘GreaterThan’ for the condition, and ‘500’ for the Value. Keep in mind that each filter you add narrows the list. If you want each filter to stand alone (for example, “Show me people in Orange County OR Los Angeles County”) you need to check the ‘OR’ box next to each filter.
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How do I can I highlight contacts who have given more than $100?
ContribuTrac supports a feature called “Automatic Formatting”. This allows you to control the look (cell & font color, and font style) of your data based on criteria. You could achieve the above with Automatic Formatting. Choose Change, Automatic Formatting in the Toolbar. Choose a name for condition, choose a field for the criteria, a comparison, and a value that the field must meet for the formatting to be applied. This will result in the matching records highlighted (with light yellow) in your main view. The formatting will print as well.
How do I change the font of my lists?
To alter the font of your view, choose Change, Format View. A window will appear with various options for changing fonts of rows and headings, sizing, and grid lines.
Why & how do I create an affiliation between contacts?
Affiliations provide a way to create relationships between contacts. (Also referred to as linking by other programs) Once you define an affiliation, you can leverage that data with filtering and householding. To define an affiliation, open any contact and choose the affiliations tab. Click Add to bring up a browse that allows you to pick your the contact to affiliate with. Click Ok. Now you must type in the nature of the affiliation. This can be anything you like, but you should be consistent. For example, “Spouse” for defining a spousal affiliation. Click Save & Close to save your changes, and now the affiliation is in place.
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How do I view all contacts Affiliated with a business?
One reason why you’d want to define affiliations is so you can see at a glance who might be affiliated with a certain business (or any contact). Choose Affiliations from the Change menu. 2. This will bring up the Affiliation Conditions window. First click New, then check the box “Show only Contacts that Are Affiliated with” and choose the business. Click Ok. Now you will only be viewing those contacts affiliated with the condition you defined.
I want to see Email address in my list. Where is it?
By default in ContribuTrac, only some of the available contact fields are displayed in your view. You might want to add email address, or any other fields (including your own custom fields) to the view. There are two ways to change what fields are visible. I will detail each. One way would be with the Field Chooser, which is available on the toolbar. This will bring up the Field Chooser window. From here, you can drag and drop fields from the window into your view. The little red arrows show you where the column will go. In the image, I add County in-between Phone and Occupation. The other way to adjust which fields are visible is through the Change button on the Toolbar. Choose Change, Show Fields. This brings up a window showing you what fields are available on the left, and which are visible, on the right. You can add, remove, and adjust the order in here, then click Ok to make it happen.
A button appeared that says “Email Changes”. What is this?
One of the fundamental concepts involving ContribuTrac is that Durkee & Associates holds the master database, and ContribuTrac shows data from this database. When you make a change to a contact, for example, change an address or occupation, Durkee & Associates needs to know so we can update the master database. This ensures that the next time your Update, those changes will remain. In order to make this easy for you, you can email us changes you make directly from ContribuTrac. After any changes are made, an ‘Email Changes’ button appears. Click this to view the changes you have made, and email them to Durkee & Associates.
A button appeared that says “Conflicts?”. What is this?
This button comes up after an Update. If this button appears, it means that a Contact that you added manually to ContribuTrac may be the same as one Durkee & Associates imported. The scenario where this would occur could be as follows. Contacts are added at your office for purposes of solicitation or tracking. That contact then contributes to the campaign. Their money arrives at Durkee & Associates and gets entered into the master database. On a new Update to ContribuTrac, that contact from the master database gets merged with the contact that you added originally. The result is two contact records that are the same entity. To resolve this issue, ContribuTrac does name and address matching to look for this possibility during an Update. If it finds what it thinks may be two contacts that are the same entity, a Conflicts button appears in the Toolbar. Click this to bring up a window, which allows you to effectively ‘Combine’ the two. If you determine the two are indeed different contact, then choose ignore. If they are the same, then choose Combine.
What is householding and how do I do it?
“Householding” means combining people who are related in some fashion (usually in the same household, or address) so when soliciting you only send one piece or correspondence. Householding in ContribuTrac will take contacts that are related (how they’re related you shall specify) and combine their records so that their names appear on the Envelope field together. This is useful for mailings. Householding a list does not alter your data in any way, you can apply and unapply householding at will. To use this feature choose Householding from the Change menu on the toolbar. This will bring up the Householding dialog where you can specify how you want your records combined. Choose your options, then click Apply to start the process. Your view will now have combined names in the Envelope field. To unapply householding, just go back to this window, and click Unapply.
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