Gathering additional data with Donations

[DamonKirkpatrick]

I am trying to use CiviContribute in 1.8 to track volunteer hours for my organization.  My thought would be that, after an event, a member would go home and enter the number of hours they contributed that day.  For tax purposes though, I have to capture some additional information.  For example, a donation page lists the time/date of the "donation" itself.  I need to capture the date the service was performed on.

I've set up a Custom Fields with the information I need to capture, and created a "Donation Page" where people can enter the number of hours worked.  However, the custom data doesn't appear there and I also read somewhere that custom data should not be attached to transactional data like donations and should really only be attached to members or more static data.

Has anyone accomplished something like this?  Or, has anyone figured out a better way to record donations of time?

Thanks -

Stoic

[Donald Lobo]

The below should work quite nicely. Can you set this up on http://demo.civicrm.org and give us the donation page url, so we can figure out if its a bug or a setup issue

thanx

lobo

[DamonKirkpatrick]

Thanks again, Lobo.  I think I figured it out but it doesn't work at all as I expected it to.  If you look at the demo site, you'll see that I created a custom data set called Volunteer Information.  I expected to be able to add that to the specific contribution page. 

From the contribution configuration page, I could only add Profiles.  So I went back and added a Profile called Volunteer Information and added that, instead, to the contribution page.  That seemed to work but confused me a bit because I thought that's what custom data was for.  (obviously, I'm still very new at this).

The only other difference I could find was that the "Date" entry from the Profile fields didn't have the calendar selector like the data field from the custom data fields.  Obviously, not a big problem.  I'll try to read through the documentation a bit more to better understand the difference between the profile and custom data stuff.

Anybody else out there capturing volunteer hours in any other way that works well?

Oh - one more thing, any idea how to turn off the currency settings for contributions dealing with time or does that sound like a feature request?

Thanks again!

[Donald Lobo]

Please read the custom data and profiles section at:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Documentation+Home
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Profiles+Admin
http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=9307

to get a better idea of how things are organized in civicrm

Check:

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/Contribution+Amounts

to get around the amount / currency issue.

lobo

lobo

[DamonKirkpatrick]

Thanks again, I will.  I'd been on those most of the day but I don't think it ever came together.  I appreciate your help.

[mcsmom]

If custom data can't be applied to contributions or events, why do they show up on the"Used For" drop down menu when you create a new custom data group?

[Kurund Jalmi]

Custom Data can be used for Contribution And Events for both Online and Offline modes. You can add this custom field to Profile and use for Contribution and Events.  (We don't support mix profiles ie. Individual + Contribution fields etc.) But there are few restrictions for Online Pages which we will fix in 2.x

HTH

Kurund

[mcsmom]

No, I don't believe that is correct. It seems like it should be possible--I should be able to find out  if someone needs a vegetarian meal and how many people are coming--but in reality it is not possible. I believe you might be able to use a profile to enter individual custom data (added--when having an event sign up), but you can't have custom data describing the event or contribution. I believe you could do this in 1.7, but it is gone, but I'm not totally sure.

[Dave Greenberg]

I've set up a Custom Fields with the information I need to capture, and created a "Donation Page" where people can enter the number of hours worked.  However, the custom data doesn't appear there and I also read somewhere that custom data should not be attached to transactional data like donations and should really only be attached to members or more static data.

Custom data should be attached to transactional data IF it is related to the transaction. When setting up custom data fields you need to determine whether you are collecting general information about the contact - or information about a specific transaction/interaction.

Examples:
- What color are your eyes? Blue
This is general info about an Individual contact. It would be added as a custom field in a custom field group attached to "Contact - Individuals".

- Which main course do you want at our Dinner/Dance? Fish
This is "transactional" info about participation in an Event. It would be added as a custom field in a custom field group attached to "Participants".

[mcsmom]

But only if you are using paypal pro or authorize.net, right?

http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,1014.msg4825.html#msg4825

[Dave Greenberg]

True - using custom fields in online contribution and event registration forms is limited to PayPal Pro and Authorize.net. (You can also use them for offline entry (i.e. staff member is entering a contribution or event registration from the contact's Contribution or Event tab).

[mcsmom]

And they will export and be viewable on the tab? I guess I could use a profile and then periodically export then import.