Every contact record in your CRM uses a web form. Those form settings control what staff and members can enter, whether two contacts can share an email address, and which optional communication preferences they see.
This article covers the Contacts settings in Setup, including default forms, contact-specific form components, duplicate-email prevention, quick-add field lists in other applications, and communication types.
Prerequisites
- You need access to your account's setup area, specifically the Contacts settings.
- You need at least one active web form for the Contact record before you choose a create or edit form. Web forms use Rhythm's shared form designer; see Web Forms for how forms, pages, and components work in general.
- Communication types must already exist before contacts can set preferences for them.
Tip
Before you add a custom field, check the Data Dictionary under Contacts + Organizations › Contact to see which fields already exist on the contact record. This helps you avoid creating a custom field that duplicates a built-in one.
Choose the Forms Staff Use to Create and Edit Contacts
Go to Rolodex (CRM) › Setup › Contacts › Forms, then select Configure Defaults. The Console card in the dialog has two required pickers:
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| When creating a new contact: | Any active contact web form | None until set | Staff see this form on the Create Contact page |
| When editing an existing contact: | Any active contact web form | None until set | Staff see this form when they edit a contact |
These two Console pickers appear in the same dialog as the four Portal pickers. Each picker must be set before its related page works. The Portal pickers control the form a new member completes on their first visit, the form a returning member uses to update their profile, and the two forms an organization administrator uses to add or edit a colleague. Those Portal settings are covered in Configure Portal Sign-Up and Profile Settings and the organization-permissions article because they apply to different audiences. The Portal contact-creation picker also controls which fields members see the first time they create their own account. To change that experience, open Rolodex (CRM) › Setup › Contacts › Forms, choose Configure Defaults, find the form assigned to Portal contact creation, and edit that form's pages and components.
Warning
A group registration form does not use these default create and edit pickers. The form shown during group registration is the one assigned in that event's own Group Registration settings, not the Console or Portal defaults you set here.
If the create or edit form is not set, the related Create Contact or Edit Contact page in the Console cannot open. The page shows Unable to determine form and stays on the loading panel until an administrator sets the missing form here.
Warning
Contacts & Organizations supports only one active contact form for creating contacts and one for editing them. You cannot link directly to a different contact-edit form for another audience or use case. If you need a separate data-entry form outside these defaults, consider building it as a portal form in Submissions & Reviews and exposing it from its own page or menu instead.
Contact forms do not have their own inactive status. To stop staff or members from using a form, remove it from Configure Default Contact Forms and from any process or organization type that still points to it.
The Contact-Specific Form Components
When you design or edit a contact web form in the shared form designer, the component palette includes two contact-specific building blocks in addition to the platform's standard fields. See Web Forms for details about the designer itself.
- Contact Work Info keeps the contact's organization, job title, contact roles, and work address together. The available roles narrow based on the organization's allowed roles, and the work address can follow the organization's own address.
- Contact Communication Preferences adds one on/off switch for each active communication type.
Open a component's settings panel from its card on the design canvas.
| Component | Option | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Contact Work Info | Require organization? | Makes the organization field required on the form |
| Contact Work Info | Hide Contact Roles? | Removes the contact role field from the form |
| Contact Work Info | Require users to fill in a value for work address | Makes the work address required |
| Contact Work Info | Do not allow users to enter organizations that do not already exist | Limits the organization field to existing organizations |
| Contact Work Info | When a user enters an organization name that doesn't exist, do NOT create/link a new organization record | Keeps a typed, unmatched organization name as text on the contact instead of creating a new organization record |
| Contact Communication Preferences | Disable Default Pre-selection? | Keeps communication switches from starting pre-selected for a new contact |
Warning
Turning off Hide Contact Roles? is not enough by itself to let someone update their contact role on this form. You also need to add the individual Contact Roles field to the form through a field group. Without that field, the role stays read-only even when the component setting is off.
When you use Require users to fill in a value for work address, a contact can still fail validation if their work address is meant to follow the organization's own address. The setting checks that the contact record is actually linked to the organization's address, not just that the option appears selected. If contacts fail that validation unexpectedly, confirm that the organization link is really in place.
If you cannot edit a contact's email opt-out settings from the contact record, the contact's edit form is probably missing the Contact Communication Preferences component. Add that component so staff can update communication preferences, including email opt-out, from the edit screen. This is the recommended way to stop a lapsed or unsubscribed contact from receiving more email. Opt them out through Communication Preferences instead of deleting the contact record, which removes them from the system entirely.
When you display a person's contact role on a profile or callout, use the Contact Roles field, not Contact Role ID. The fields are not interchangeable because the ID field does not reliably show the readable role text you want.
To make Email Address required on a contact form, add the field to a field group and mark that field group required. Neither Contact Work Info nor Contact Communication Preferences has its own email-required option. If your form uses the Contact Social Lookup component to collect email, that component has no way to require email.
When someone types a new organization name in a Contact Work Info field and organization creation is not disabled, Rhythm creates a new organization record when the contact is saved. This is a quick way to add both a person and their employer, but a typo can also create an unwanted organization record. Rhythm does not show a confirmation step before creating the organization.
Tip
When you build a query or output that shows a contact's name, use Full Name if you want credentials to appear with it. Use separate First Name, Last Name, and Credentials fields when you need more control over the formatting.
Image Fields on a Contact
Rhythm offers two different image-related fields for a contact, and they are not interchangeable:
- Image URL collects the address of an image hosted somewhere else. It is a plain text field, defined as a string in the data dictionary, so it appears as a text box on the form instead of an upload control.
- Uploading and storing an image file directly uses a separate image field, not Image URL.
Choose the field that matches what you need: a link to an externally hosted image, or an uploaded file that Rhythm stores. Do not substitute one for the other on a form.
Preferred Address Fields on a Contact Form
To let staff or Portal members update someone's preferred address, add the Preferred Address Type field to the form, within the Home Information component or field group, on both the Console and Portal forms wherever each audience needs it. Preferred Address Type is the selector a person changes to choose home, work, school, or a custom type as their preferred address.
Warning
Do not add the Preferred Address field itself to a form. Rhythm calculates it automatically from the address marked preferred, so it does not accept direct edits and should not appear as an editable field.
If you have custom contact address types, the constrained-values picker for a form's Preferred Address Type field may not offer a custom address type as a selectable option, even though that type is available and usable elsewhere as a preferred choice. If a custom type you expect to see is missing from that picker, contact Support.
Built-in Contact ID and Organization ID fields are system-managed primary identifiers, not editable business codes. If you enter a value in an ID field while creating a record, Rhythm does not keep it because Rhythm assigns its own unique ID. Do not expose these ID fields as editable on Console or Portal forms. The ID ties the record to its related data and should not change after the record is created.
Turn On Duplicate-Email Prevention
On Rolodex (CRM) › Setup › Settings, the Duplicate Email Prevention card offers three choices:
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| Disabled | Contacts can be created or updated with duplicate email addresses |
| Portal Only | Portal members cannot create contact records with duplicate email addresses |
| Console & Portal | Staff and Portal members cannot create contact records with duplicate email addresses |
Warning
Changing this setting does not affect existing records, so Rhythm does not find or flag contacts that already share an email address. The setting is also cached for up to a few hours, so a change you just made may not take effect on the very next save.
Choose Fields for a Quick-Add Contact Form
Some other applications let staff or members add a new contact during another process, such as a membership application or a giving form. These processes use a short quick-add form instead of the full contact form.
Where that control appears, it offers a checklist of up to twelve fields: Name, First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Work Phone Number, Home Phone Number, Work Address, Home Address, Job Title, Organization, Mobile Phone Number, and Organization Name. Select the fields that the process should ask for. These choices are saved on that other application's process record, not in Rolodex settings. Configure the control in the process editor for the application that uses it, such as a membership application process or a giving process.
Tip
If you leave Email Address unticked, some hosts still try to match a new person against your existing contacts by email. Keeping the email field on a quick-add form makes that matching reliable.
Because Email Address can be left off a quick-add form, and some lookup-style widgets such as Contact Social Lookup do not require it either, a contact created through one of these shorter workflows can be saved with no email address.
Manage Communication Types
A communication type is a kind of message a contact can opt in or out of, such as a newsletter or event announcements. Administrators define, deactivate, and delete communication types from a setup page under Contacts in your account's setup area. This page was not available to verify its exact navigation label when this article was written.
| Action | Effect |
|---|---|
| Define a type | Give it a name and, optionally, a description. Rhythm refuses a type with no name |
| Deactivate a type | Forms stop offering it for new choices, but contacts who already made a choice keep that choice on their record |
| Delete a type | Rhythm removes the type even if contacts still have a choice for it. Each affected contact loses that choice the next time their own record is saved, not immediately |
You cannot set the display order of communication types from the setup page. Rhythm presents them in the order its list returns them, generally by name.
Warning
When you add a new communication type, it can appear pre-selected the next time someone opens an existing contact for editing, but that appearance alone does not mean the contact is opted in. The opt-in is stored, and shows correctly in queries, only after that contact's record is saved again. There is no supported way to apply a new communication type to many existing contacts at once. Mass update, import, custom expressions, calculated values, and Security & Settings tools cannot change an individual contact's communication-type value in bulk. The only reliable way to make a new type take effect on an existing contact is to open and resave that contact's record, one at a time. For example, you can ask contacts to update their own communication preferences or have staff resave the affected records. If this affects a large number of contacts, contact Rhythm Support.
Tip
If you query for contacts who can still be emailed, remember that more than one opt-out indicator can exclude a contact from email. Build your filter so a contact is included only when none of the relevant opt-out fields show they have opted out.
Permissions
Setting the default contact forms and the duplicate-email choice both require access to your account's Contacts setup pages. Defining, deactivating, and deleting communication types requires the same setup access.
Validation and Errors
If you leave both the create and edit contact form pickers empty, nothing fails immediately because the dialog does not require you to fill them before closing. The next time anyone opens the Create Contact or Edit Contact page, the page shows Unable to determine form with the message No console create contact web form configured. Please configure the appropriate form in Rolodex settings. or the edit equivalent. Set the missing form, then reload the page.
When duplicate-email prevention is on, the person saving the contact sees any duplicate contact-email conflict. The conflict does not appear anywhere on this settings page.
If creating or editing a contact produces an error naming a custom field that is not on the form, and is not listed among your account's CRM fields, the issue points to a backend field-reference problem rather than a form-layout issue. Contact Rhythm Support instead of looking for the named field in the form designer.