CRM settings control account-wide CRM choices, including default forms, duplicate email rules, engagement scoring, automatic region assignment, and extra CRM query columns. This article explains the settings page and the related dialogs that save to the same settings record. Separately, from a contact’s own CRM record, staff can review emails Rhythm sent to that person, which is often the fastest way to confirm whether a specific message, such as a payment-failure notice, went out.
What It Controls
Everything on this page and in the related dialogs is saved in one settings record for your Rhythm account. Each save sends the full record back, so requirements in one area can affect a change you make somewhere else.
- Portal sign-up and child-organization behavior — see Configure Portal Sign-Up and Profile Settings and Configure What Portal Members May Do for Their Organization for those settings specifically.
- Duplicate-email prevention for contacts.
- Engagement scoring on or off, including which scoring model scores contacts and which scores organizations.
- Automatic region assignment — see Automatic Region Assignment Rules for the full setup.
- Extra columns for CRM queries: contact fields shown in organization queries, and selected events, courses, or committees shown as columns in contact queries.
- Default forms and default 360 pages for contacts and organizations, which you set from the separate dialogs described below.
Where to Find It
Go to Rolodex (CRM) Setup & Administration › Settings to open the main settings page. To set default forms and default 360 pages, open the Contacts or Organizations Forms and 360° Screens setup pages, then use each page’s Configure Defaults action.
Prerequisites
You need the permission your administrator grants for CRM settings.
The Settings
Duplicate Email Prevention
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duplicate Email Prevention | Disabled, Portal only, Portal and Console | Disabled | Controls whether Rhythm stops a contact from being saved with an email address another contact already uses |
When you turn this on, Rhythm blocks staff or members from creating a new contact with an email address another contact already uses. It also blocks changing an existing contact’s email address to one already used by another contact. Contacts that already shared an email address before you turned on this setting stay as they are.
Engagement
This section appears only when your Rhythm account uses engagement scoring.
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enable engagement scoring | On, off | Off | Controls whether Rhythm calculates engagement scores |
| Contact scoring model | One of your engagement scoring models for contacts | None | Chooses the model that scores contacts |
| Organization scoring model | One of your engagement scoring models for organizations | None | Chooses the model that scores organizations |
Automatic Region Assignment
This section appears only when your Rhythm account uses regions. See Automatic Region Assignment Rules for the switch, the choices below it, and the rules table. They all live on this same settings page. Regions are also available from the same Rolodex setup area, so you do not need to request access before you start creating them.
Warning
The region switch and its choices appear only when your Rhythm account has the related feature. If automatic region assignment is already on but the switch is not visible on this page, the rules table can still appear and remain editable below it. In that situation, you cannot turn assignment off from this page, so contact Support if you need it turned off.
Because this whole page saves as one record, Rhythm can validate the region-assignment rules even when the region controls are hidden or look inactive. If you change an unrelated setting and the save is refused because of a region rule requirement, check the region assignment rules even though you were not trying to change them.
Contact Fields in Organization Queries
Choose the standard or custom contact fields you want staff to see beside each contact role’s name, email, and phone number when they query organizations. The field picker groups options by the category each field comes from, so you can tell apart fields that would otherwise look duplicated in one flat list.
Organization queries that filter on an admin contact’s email address, name, or phone number now save and run correctly. Earlier attempts to use those specific criteria could fail.
Warning
The page prevents you from choosing more than 15 fields by showing a message and disabling Save Changes above that count. These fields appear in organization queries only when Rhythm has turned on the related query capability for your account. If you chose fields here and do not see them in your queries, contact Support.
If you remove a field you configured here, any saved query that already uses that field will break. You’ll need to recreate or resave that query once the field is gone.
Include Events, Courses, and Committees in Contact Queries
Use these three cards to choose specific events, courses, and committees that should appear as columns on every contact query. For example, staff can see whether a contact registered for a chosen event and which registration type they used.
| Card | Switch | What you choose | Console limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Include Events in Contact Queries | On, off | One or more of your account’s events | 15 |
| Include Courses in Contact Queries | On, off | One or more of your account’s courses | 15 |
| Include Committees in Contact Queries | On, off | One or more of your account’s committees | 50 |
When you turn on a card’s switch, you must choose at least one event, course, or committee before you can save.
Warning
The Committees card lets you choose up to 50 committees, but the save is refused when you choose more than 15. If you add more than 15 committees and save, reduce the list to 15 or fewer. See Validation and Errors below for what that failure looks like.
Default Contact Forms
Open the Forms setup page for contacts and select Configure Defaults.
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| When creating a new contact | Sets the form staff use to create a contact in the Console |
| When editing an existing contact | Sets the form staff use to edit a contact in the Console |
| When a contact first enters the portal | Sets the form shown when a member signs up |
| When a contact is updating their contact profile | Sets the form a member uses to update their own profile in the Portal |
| When an organization administrator is creating a new organization contact | Sets the form used in the Portal to add a colleague |
| When an organization administrator is editing an existing organization contact | Sets the form used in the Portal to edit a colleague |
| Do not allow contacts to change their name in the portal | Hides the name fields from a member’s own profile form |
| Do not allow contacts to change their credentials in the portal (new contacts can still provide them) | Hides the credential fields from a member’s own profile form after their first save |
You must choose all six forms before you can save this dialog. The list includes only your account’s active contact forms. There is no separate switch to make a chosen default inactive, so choose a different active form here when a form should stop being used by default.
An administrator can also choose where staff land after creating a contact, instead of always sending them to the new contact’s own record page. Check CRM Setup & Administration for that redirect option if you’d rather send staff somewhere else after a create.
Default Organization Forms
Open the Forms setup page for organizations and select Configure Defaults.
| Setting | Effect |
|---|---|
| When creating a new organization | Sets the form staff use to create an organization in the Console |
| When editing an existing organization | Sets the form staff use to edit an organization in the Console |
| When an organization administrator is updating their organization profile | Sets the form used in the Portal to update the organization’s own profile |
| Do not allow organization name changes in the portal | Hides the name field from an organization’s own profile form |
You must choose all three forms before you can save this dialog. The list includes only your account’s active organization forms. An organization type can name its own forms, and those choices take priority over these account-wide defaults for organizations of that type. Do not allow organization name changes in the portal is also where you make an organization’s name read-only for its own administrators, rather than trying to lock it down elsewhere.
Default 360 Page
Open the 360° Screens setup page for contacts or organizations, then select Configure Defaults. Choose a designed 360 page from the list, or leave the choice empty to use the built-in layout.
Warning
Saving this dialog replaces every other setting stored with the default 360 page choice for that record kind, either contacts or organizations. That includes any default form choices stored the older way for that kind. In practice, this rarely affects your current default forms because current-generation form choices are stored separately. If you notice a default form setting revert unexpectedly after choosing a default 360 page, check and reset the default forms dialog for that record kind.
Dependencies and Precedence
- Every form you choose here must match the setting. Use a contact form where Rhythm expects a contact form, and an organization form where Rhythm expects an organization form. Rhythm checks this when you save.
- Every form, scoring model, region, and custom address type named in these settings must exist. You cannot delete a form, model, region, or address type while these settings still refer to it, so choose something else here first.
- Enabling child-organization management for the Portal requires a create form when creation is allowed. Despite what the field label implies, it requires an edit form specifically when deletion is allowed, not when editing is allowed. If you allow editing but not deleting, the record itself does not require an edit form. If you later allow deleting, choose an edit form or the save will be refused.
Change Impact and How to Revert
Warning
Every part of these settings is stored in one record, and every save sends the whole record back, whether you save from the main settings page or from a "Configure Defaults" dialog. If someone else saved a change to any part of CRM settings after you opened the page, your save is refused and none of your changes are stored. The main settings page reports "Settings saved successfully" whether the save worked or not — a failed save shows the same wording in an error-styled message. If you are not sure your change took effect, reload the settings page and check.
The "Configure Defaults" dialogs for forms report failures accurately with "Unable to save settings." This misleading success message is specific to Save Changes on the main settings page.
Changing automatic region assignment settings does not move any existing record. See Automatic Region Assignment Rules for recalculating.
Permissions
To change CRM settings, you need the permission your administrator grants for CRM settings. To open the Forms or 360° Screens setup pages and reach their "Configure Defaults" dialogs, you need the permission for managing those forms or screens.
Validation and Errors
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| A chosen form is the wrong kind for its setting | The save is refused, and the message names the setting |
| Duplicate Email Prevention is set to something other than the three valid choices (not reachable through the Console) | The save is refused |
| Automatic region assignment is on with no complete rules | The save is refused |
| More than 15 committees chosen for contact queries | The save is refused, even though the page lets you choose up to 50 |
| A referenced form, scoring model, region, or address type no longer exists | The save is refused |
The main settings page always uses success wording in its message text, so check the message color or icon to confirm whether the save worked. If you are not sure, reload the page and confirm your changes are still there.