Can Custom Data Group with multiple records be in Profiles

[pkeogan]

Can data fields within a Custom Data Group that allows for multiple records be used in Profiles?

I setup this example in the Drupal/Civi Demo Site

Step 1:  Created a Custom Data Group "Student Goals" as Individual, Inline, and made it active
Step 2: Created one data field "Work Goals"
Step 3: Created a Profile "Student Goals" set its use for "Profile, View/Edit Drupal User Account" and made it active
Step 4: Started to Add a Field Name, set it as Individual, and in the data options I could see the Customer Field "Work Goals"
I did not save this Field Name, I just wanted to see if I could see the custom data field... all OK so far...

I went back to the Custom data group and changed it from Inline to Tab.... repeated step 4... all OK so far...

I went back to the Custom data group and checked "Does this Custom Data Group allow multiple records?" ... repeated step 4 and now the Custom Field "Work Goals" no longer appears.

It seems that for fields in custom data groups to be usable by profiles, they can not have the multiple data records.  Is that true?

I  created a new data group called “Student Goals 2”.  I didn’t check the multiple records box, set up a Profile and added that custom data field to the profile.  Then edited the data group and checked off for multiple records and the profile appeared ok, but when I viewed it through the “My Accounts” link the Profile tab was visible, but not the data field.

Ultimately I’d like to have multiple custom data groups that members of certain groups  can update through the “My Account” link.  Many of the custom data groups will need to allow multiple records.

Hopefully I’m just doing something wrong…

[Donald Lobo]

currently no

if this is important to you/your org, please consider contributing code to implement this functionality and/or sponsoring a developer/core team to work on this. I dont think this is a trivial project (probably 100-200 hours work or so)

http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Developing+with+the+CiviCRM+team

this is a great time to consider this as we are setting up the 3.2 feature set

lobo

[pkeogan]

I was afraid of that...  We may consider sponsoring, but I think 100-200 hours would be too expensive.  What would that cost?

I assume that the profile would be constructed to accept either fields from data groups that allowed multiple records or fields from data groups that did not; they couldn't be mixed.  Mixing them would be a lot harder

Would it be simpler to limit the profile to just "View/Edit Drupal User Account"?

Would be easier to expose the Data Group itself to the “My Account” view – similar to how it is exposed within Contacts?

[Donald Lobo]

our consulting contract and rates are here: http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRM/Consulting+Services+Agreement

all the profile stuff in various places go through the same code. if/when we do work on implementing this, we'll figure out what conditions and restrictions to place

lobo

[nicozdunich]

Just wondering if anything happened with regards to this? There is a similar thread that went on at http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,7890.msg73921.html#msg73921

[Donald Lobo]

no. unfortunately we've not had any folks willing to code and/or sponsor this feature. if your org can help with this that would be a great first step

lobo

[penguintrax]

Can multiple records fields be used for events? When I try this, it tells me that I need to use inline style, when I change to inline style, it tells me its not a valid style for the field. Rather Catch-22.

[Donald Lobo]

no. multiple records are restricted to contacts only

lobo

[penguintrax]

thanks lobo - looks like we are going to plan b for now. we will keep an eye on the multiple records field in civievent issue too.

[EC]

Hi,

I'm very new to CiviCRM and I'm trying to figure out if it can do the job for a small organization which I'm helping. In my use case, individuals need to have several skills. Then I need to let anonymous users search among the available skills.  Like the above starting example, I guess that I need a custom data group with multiple records to be used with a search profile.

However, looking at this topic, I understand it was not doable, is there any update on that topic?

If it's still not yet doable in the Civi side, can I achieve that in the Drupal side with views? Any tips would help me a lot.

Thank you, regards,

[pkeogan]

EC,

The good news is that I don't think you need multi-record data.  I would think you could use a multi-select or check box option for your data fields to accomplish what you want.  Those are both available in profiles and views.

Take a look here first:  http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC40/Profiles+Admin

Good luck.

The multi-record option isn't in core yet.  We've done a bunch of implementations using multi-record data in Drupal based searches using both views and profiles, but the work was custom. We hope to contribute some of this back to core next year.

Paul

[EC]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for replying. Unfortunatly the "good news" may not be that good ! In fact in my use case the skills I talk about need to be described with several fields that's why I guess I need a Custom data group with multiple records, because obviously one may have multiple skills.

I'm thinking of a workaround while waiting for some fix in Civi core for that issue: I know how to create a new content type in drupal to describe a skill and how to make some views to show them. However what I miss is how to automatically link the user in drupal creating a new skill node type with the corresponding contact entry in Civi. I tried a civicrm contact field however I can't use a token to prepopulate the field with the contact id! Any tips for another solution?

Regards,

[Rajesh]

This may be useful

http://civicrm.org/blogs/rajesh/custom-data-group-multiple-records-contribution-page