This tutorial demonstrates how to add contact details for someone you know through your wildlife recording activities. This information is required if you wish to allow additional recorders to use your FieldNotes database, and also for sharing observations with recorders.

This tutorial assumes that you have FieldNotes setup on your computer, and that you are familiar with the process of adding new records (described in detail in the introductory tutorials).

Preliminary Steps in adding a Contact

Adding a new Contact to your database is a straightforward process that involves completing a single form.

Open the 'New Contact' form

The quickest way of opening the 'New Contact' form is to ensure that the record-type selector is set to Contacts, and select the Add button on the main toolbar.

The 'New Contact' form is displayed.

The 'New Contact' form

Input data fields

Field		Notes
	Name	Contact name
	Organisation	The Organisation or Association that this contact works for (or is affiliated with)
	Phone number	Business phone number
	Mobile	Business Mobile phone number
	Email	Business email address
	Address	Postal address (outside working hours)
	Phone number	Phone number (outside working hours)
	Mobile	Mobile phone number (outside working hours)
	Email	email address (outside working hours)
	Help	Field-content information
	Save	Save data as new record
	Cancel	Cancel the form

Notes:

1. Mandatory fields (light red) are essential for creating a valid record.

In general it is good practice to provide as much information (ie. complete as many fields) as possible.

Preliminary - check the level-of-detail

As we have now progressed beyond the introductory tutorials, we will start to explore the 'standard' level-of-detail for entering Contact details. (You can continue to use the 'Quick' level-of-detail for speed if you prefer - you will simply have fewer fields to complete.) Otherwise if your form has fewer fields than in the diagram above, check that the level-of-detail (displayed on the right-hand edge of the form title) is set to 'Standard'. If it is not, select the appropriate checkbox.

Setting the level-of-detail
checkbox to 'Standard'
[applies to most forms]

In data-entry forms, level-of-detail affects the number of input fields displayed. The relevant Help pages contain more detailed information about using level-of-detail.

Steps in adding a new Contact

Sections 1-4 below describe the steps in completing the 'New Contact' form from scratch.

Enter the Contact name

Type the full name of the person you know in the "Name" field.

The Contact name must be unique
to your FieldNotes database.

Names may contain any combination of letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation.

Enter contact details for this person at their place of work (if available)

If this person works for (or is affiliated with) an Organisation / Association in the natural environment sector, use the Pick button (left of the Organisation name field) to select the name from the list of known organisations. In this way, details for the relevant Organisation / Association will be associated with this Contact.

Selecting a business from the list of Organisation / Association records:

Pick the appropriate Organisation (by double-clicking - this will add the name to the 'Selected' list on the left-hand side of the form), then press the OK button to enter this value into the relevant field on the 'New Contact' form.

Alternatively, if this Organisation is not currently included in your FieldNotes database, either type the full name of the Organisation in the "Name" field (which will generate a warning when you save the record) or follow the steps in Tutorial 2.8 to add the relevant Organisation / Association.

If you have a (work-related) phone number, mobile and email address for this person (and you have valid reasons for contacting them during working hours), enter these in the appropriate fields.

Enter contact details for this person outside their place of work (if available)

If you have been given a personal phone number, mobile and email address by this person (and have valid reasons for contacting them outside working hours), complete the appropriate fields.

Review the data you have entered

Take a moment to check that the data you have entered is correct, and agrees with your field notebook information.

The 'New Contact' form - completed

Field notebook entry

Save this record to the database

Pressing the Save button will save the information you have entered as a new database record. Before the information is saved, however, FieldNotes will carry out a number of internal consistency checks on the values you have entered, and warn you if changes are required (eg. if the Contact name duplicates an existing entry) or desirable (eg. Organisation / Association name does not match any existing records). If error or warning messages are generated, you will have the opportunity to correct the values you have entered before the record is saved.

Errors and Warnings generated by the 'New Contact' form

The Contact information is now saved as a record in the database.

Notes

None.