Author Topic: Source Field? (Read 2411 times)

rob123 · January 26, 2008, 08:17:43 am

When editing a contact, there's an alphanumeric text field labelled 'Source'....

What's it for and what do you put in it?

Rob

geilhufe · January 26, 2008, 02:17:08 pm

That is usually used for an unique ID sync to external data sources. (a match field for update csv imports, that type of thing)

rob123 · January 27, 2008, 01:26:16 am

oh, I thought it was for recording how a contact was reached. (ie. survey, Word of Mouth, another contact's name).

How do people, if needed, usually record stuff like that?

Dave Greenberg · January 27, 2008, 06:03:49 pm

Actually - the "intended" use is for recording how the contact get "connected" to the organization using CiviCRM. The "External ID" field is designed to store a unique ID from an external application (e.g. a legacy DB id or key, or a key for a related application).

rob123 · January 28, 2008, 05:45:22 am

Thanks for clearing that up.

xavier · January 28, 2008, 06:18:57 am

Is there a "internal source/contact" field ?

I'd like to be able to register who is "responsible" (as in who put the contact in the the db in the first place) for each contact.

The idea is that I can look at who the user John Doe has added in the db, and check with him they are complete, or fetch all the contacts he's put one year ago, so their contact details can be refreshed if needed.

I started to use the source as this field, but there is one obvious limitation (you have to type "John Doe" in the source instead of selecting him from the list of the users), and you can't use the source for what you just described.

How do you handle that ?
X+

Dave Greenberg · January 28, 2008, 01:24:35 pm

This information is available in the DB, and the user interface - but may not quite be in the form you want it without doing some additional work.

When a contact is created, AND each time it is modified, a record is inserted in civicrm_log. The log record carries the ID (FKey to civicrm_contact.id)of the contact who created or modified the record - in the modified_id column.

You can use the "Change Log" pane in advanced search to find records "Modified By" a particular contact within a date range. However, this will find both newly created AND updated records.

Also, the "Change Log" tab - when viewing a contact record - shows the history of changes to that contact (when and by whom) - sorted by date descending - so the last row in that log is the create entry.

I think the custom search framework in 2.0 could be used to create a nice search interface for the "created by" question. If you're interested in trying that out - check out the example in the 2.0 codebase for "aggregate contribution search" - CRM/Contact/Form/Search/Custom/Contribution.php .

CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

News:

Author Topic: Source Field? (Read 2411 times)

rob123

Source Field?

geilhufe

Re: Source Field?

rob123

Re: Source Field?

Dave Greenberg

Re: Source Field?

rob123

Re: Source Field?

xavier

Re: Source Field?

Dave Greenberg

Re: Source Field?