Connecting Clowder lets your association send additional contact and membership details to the Clowder mobile community app, beyond the standard integration. You also choose which added fields appear publicly on a member’s Clowder profile. This article explains the Clowder connection settings you manage in the Console.
What It Controls
The Clowder connection is one saved record for your entire Rhythm account. It controls:
- The name you give the connection.
- Which additional contact fields Rhythm sends to Clowder.
- Which additional membership fields Rhythm sends to Clowder.
- Which of those sent fields appear publicly on a member's Clowder profile.
Prerequisites
Your association must have the Clowder integration enabled. If it is not enabled, you cannot save the connection, and you see a message explaining that your account does not have access to enable it.
Setting up Clowder for the first time usually involves more than this page. Expect to complete a technical mapping survey, share API details with Rhythm, and join a technical call to confirm how your data maps to Clowder before this connection is ready to configure.
Where to Find It
Go to System & Security › Integrations › Clowder. If your account has not connected Clowder before, the page opens as a blank form. After you save the connection, return to this page to review or change the saved settings.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Any text | None | Required. This is the label for the connection. |
| Contact Fields | Your contact fields, including custom fields, plus Committees | None selected | Sends additional contact field information to Clowder beyond the standard integration payload. |
| Membership Fields | Your membership fields, including custom fields | None selected | Sends additional membership field information to Clowder beyond the standard integration payload. |
| Publicly Available Fields | Whatever you currently have selected in Contact Fields and Membership Fields | None selected | Shows selected sent fields publicly on a member's Clowder profile. |
Tip
The Committees option appears at the end of the Contact Fields list so you can share members' current committee memberships with Clowder. This option is available only for contacts, so it does not appear in the membership fields list.
Warning
The Publicly Available Fields list only includes fields you have already selected above, so you cannot make any other fields on this page public. The available choices update automatically as you add or remove contact and membership fields. If you marked a field public and later deselect it as a contact or membership field, remove it from Publicly Available Fields yourself if you no longer want it shown.
Dependencies and Precedence
Choose your Contact Fields and Membership Fields before you choose Publicly Available Fields, because the public list comes from the two field lists above it. Rhythm does not check whether a selected field still exists, so if someone deletes that field later, its entry here is not automatically cleaned up.
Change Impact and How to Revert
- Adding or removing a field from Contact Fields or Membership Fields changes what Rhythm sends to Clowder going forward. You can add or remove fields at any time.
- Renaming a field elsewhere in Rhythm after you select it here does not necessarily update its label on this page, because the field's description is stored as it was when you selected it.
- There is no on/off switch and no removal control for this connection in the Console. If you need to disable or remove it, contact your Rhythm point of contact.
Permissions
When this integration is enabled for your Rhythm account, any signed-in staff member can view and change the Clowder connection. There is no separate permission for this page.
Validation and Errors
| Situation | What you see |
|---|---|
| Name is left blank | You cannot save until you enter a name. |
| Your account's permission profile does not allow this integration | The save is refused with a message explaining that your account does not have access to enable it; the Console shows "Unable to save settings". |
| The settings fail to load | "Unable to load clowder settings" |