This article shows you how to find an organization, review its CRM page, and choose or quickly add an organization from another screen, such as when you link a contact to an employer.
Search for an Organization
Prerequisites
- You need permission to view organizations. If Organizations is not in the CRM menu, ask your administrator.
- Go to Rolodex (CRM) › Organizations.
- Enter what you know about the organization. You can use any combination of these fields:
- Name: — matches the organization's name.
- Type: — searches one or more organization types. When you choose a type, Rhythm returns only that exact type, even if another type starts with the same word.
- Domain Name: — searches the organization's web domain, such as
acme.com. - City: and State: — match the organization's main address.
- Country: — searches one or more countries, using the placeholder Select one or more countries.
- Number: — searches one or more organization numbers, separated by commas or new lines.
- A status dropdown, which has no visible label and sits between Number: and ID: — searches Active, Duplicate, or Inactive.
- ID: — searches one or more record IDs, separated by commas or new lines. This is Rhythm's record ID, not a code your organization assigns. If you need to track your own identifier, such as a school or chapter code, add a custom field for it instead of using this field for another purpose.
- Run the search.
Use this page when you need an exact match on an organization's name instead of using a picker or quick search somewhere else.
Result
The results table shows each matching organization's name, type, city and state, main phone number, and web domain. If an organization is inactive or marked as a duplicate, Rhythm shows a colored status pill next to its name. Select a column heading to sort by that column. Rhythm remembers your last search criteria and results in this browser, so Organizations opens where you left off until you refine the search again.
Tip
Search does not correct spelling, so a misspelled name returns no results. It also does not use wildcard characters. If you cannot find an organization you know exists, try a shorter or different part of its name, or search by domain, city, or number instead. When many organizations share a similar name, add the city because the record you want may not appear first. Organization names are not unique, so use the type, city, phone, domain, or number to tell similar records apart.
Rhythm does not have a built-in way to search for an organization by a separate "doing business as" name. If your organizations use a DBA that differs from their registered name, store it in a custom field and search that field instead.
You can update many organizations at once from a search results list. Select the bulk-changes control above the table, tick the rows you want, and choose an operation. See Update Records in Bulk for how that works.
What's on an Organization's Page
When you open an organization from a search result, from Recently Viewed Organizations, or from a link elsewhere in Rhythm, you go to that organization's page. CRM, Sponsorship, Certifications, and Fundraising each have their own organization view, but they share the same top section. That section shows the organization's name and status, a compliance alert if one applies, a summary card, and, if your account uses engagement scoring, its engagement score.
Below that shared section, the CRM organization page includes these tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Details | Addresses, phone numbers, web domain, and social links |
| Organization Contacts | Everyone whose organization is this one, including name, title, email, phone, and roles |
| Child Organizations | The organizations directly beneath this one in its family tree |
| Activities | Logged activities that involve this organization |
| Relationships | Appears only when at least one active relationship type in your account can connect two organizations, or an organization and a contact |
| Custom Fields | Your account's custom fields for organizations |
A custom field appears in a query or filter only for organizations that have a value in that field. If many organizations have that field blank, you will see fewer matches than you might expect. Also check any setup that depends on that field, such as event pricing tied to an organization custom field, for organizations that were never given a value.
If you arrived from a search, use the arrows near the top to move to the next or previous result without returning to the list. Return to search takes you directly back to the results.
Tip
Open Organization Options near the top of the page to copy the organization's record ID, which is useful when you need it for an import file, a script, or a request to support.
Key Contacts on the Summary
If the organization's type tracks key roles, such as a Primary Contact or a Billing Contact, the summary near the top of the page lists who holds each key role. If nobody currently holds a key role, or the organization type does not track key roles, that list does not appear.
Organization Contacts
The Organization Contacts tab lists everyone whose organization is this one. Use the toggle above the list to show or hide inactive contacts, depending on whether you want people who have left to appear here.
This tab does not have a button for adding a brand-new contact. To connect someone to this organization, open that person's contact record and set their organization there instead. See Manage a Contact's Organization, Role, and History.
Child Organizations
The Child Organizations tab lists only the organizations directly beneath this one, not grandchildren farther down the tree. Each child organization appears with its name, address, and phone number. Select a child's name to open its page. The tab also shows how many child organizations it found.
Warning
The Child Organizations tab shows only the first page of results. If an organization has a very large number of direct children, some of them may not appear on this tab. When expected child organizations are missing, this limit is the likely reason rather than a data problem. If the tab keeps loading and never settles on a count or the no-children message, that is not expected behavior. Reload the page, and contact support if it continues.
If the organization has no children, the tab reads This organization does not have any subdivisions or child organizations.
Pick or Quickly Add an Organization from Another Screen
Many places in Rhythm, including a membership's linked organization and a sponsorship application, ask you to choose one organization without opening the Organizations list. The picker works the same way wherever you see it:
- Start typing part of the organization's name in the box.
- Choose a match from the suggestions, which include organizations you have viewed recently. Inactive organizations are not offered.
- If the organization does not exist yet and the screen allows it, use the option to create it immediately instead of leaving the form. The quick-add form asks only for the organization's name and its type; you can fill in everything else from the full organization record afterward.
Tip
Typing text into the box does not link an organization by itself. Choose one of the suggestions, or use the quick-add option to create a new record. Text left in the box without either action may not be saved as an organization at all.
After you link an existing organization record this way and save it, Rhythm keeps that organization's own name going forward. You cannot stay linked to the organization record while keeping a different free-text name.
Warning
Quick add does not use your account's own organization creation form, so it does not ask for anything that form requires beyond a name and a type. If the organization's type enforces a minimum number of contacts in a role, a quick-added organization is created without any contacts and may immediately show that it does not meet its type's contact role requirements. See Resolve Contact Role Compliance Issues if that happens. Afterward, open the new organization and fill in the rest of its details; see Edit an Organization's Details.
If It Fails
Quick search is meant to return an active organization by name on its own, including when the only match is an active contact linked to that organization. It should not return an organization only because a contact happens to match instead. If that is not what you are seeing, one of these causes is likely.
- A recently created organization doesn't turn up in search yet. The shared search index used by quick search can take a short time to catch up after a save, usually just a few seconds and not longer. Try again in a moment.
- An organization you know exists doesn't match a name, city, state, or domain search, or shows up as a numeric ID instead of its name on related records. Very old records saved before Rhythm started keeping searchable copies of those fields may not match until they are saved again, such as after a small edit. Records affected by a past data import can show the same symptoms: they may appear in organization queries or global search but still be missing from quick search, or a related record may show only the organization's ID instead of its name. Opening, editing, and saving the organization record can help in these cases. Resaving is a workaround, not a permanent fix. It has not restored search visibility in every case, and even when it does, it does not repair a contact's existing link to the wrong organization. You may still need to reassign that by hand. If you are running a multi-step import, fix affected organization records as part of the final import pass rather than resaving them in between; a later import step can overwrite a manual resave and undo the fix.
- A picker elsewhere in Rhythm doesn't find an organization you can see on the Organizations page. This includes an organization lookup used while creating or editing a contact, or while reassigning a record to a different organization. Pickers use the same shared index as quick search, and an organization being active in CRM does not by itself guarantee it appears there. Give it a moment and try again, search from the Organizations page directly, or search from a related record such as one of the organization's contacts. Those pages read the organization records themselves rather than the shared index.
- A search result or picker suggestion points to an organization you can no longer open, or one you already merged away. After a merge or deletion, a stale entry can keep showing in universal search or picker suggestions for a while before the index catches up. Selecting it produces an error because the underlying record is gone. As a temporary workaround, retyping the organization's full name, adding a trailing space, or refreshing the page has sometimes made the correct, surviving organization reappear in the list.
- You're searching for a parent organization that has many child organizations sharing its name. Search suggestions can prioritize the child organizations instead of the parent you want. Add the city to your search to surface the parent record.
- An organization isn't found by its Number even though it should be. Treat this as a possible product issue rather than assuming the record does not exist or was entered incorrectly. Contact support if searching other fields does not turn it up either.
- An organization can't be assigned from another screen, such as while editing a contact, even though you know it exists. If typing the name does not return it, try entering the organization's number in the same field instead. That has worked as a stopgap while a name-search problem gets investigated.
- Broken organization search or display isn't limited to finding the record. The same underlying problem can also stop you from selecting an organization while receiving a payment, processing an order, or linking a registrant or profile to an existing organization. If an organization-dependent transaction will not go through, consider whether an organization lookup problem is the cause.
- A valid organization or contact match seems to be missing entirely, not just delayed. This can happen when the link between a contact and its organization, or other related data, has fallen out of sync, for example after a data import or sync. If resaving records and trying the Organizations page directly does not turn up the match, contact support instead of assuming the data was never entered.
Search and picker results come from Rhythm's search index. There is no setting to configure which records they show or how many appear.
There is not a way to query an organization's past names the way you can query membership or invoice history. The audit history link below shows individual change events, not a structured name history.
To see who changed an organization's record and when, see Audit History: What Is Recorded and How to View It.