How to Add Fields, Use Automatic Reminders and Change Many Activities
Custom fields, automatic reminders and bulk changes on the plan.
Three tools help a project manager keep a plan current without retyping it. They are optional. A project that does not use them works as before.
Add your own fields to planned activities
A project can add up to 20 fields of its own to planned activities, for example "District" or "Distribution round".
- Open a planned activity and expand Add a field to this project.
- Give the field a name (up to 80 characters) and choose its kind:
- Text: up to 500 characters.
- Number.
- Date.
- Choice: a list of up to 30 options.
- Save. The field then appears on every planned activity in the project.
- Only a project manager can add a field. DonorDesk refuses a name that is already used in the project.
- A field left blank stays blank. It is never shown as zero.
Automatic reminders
On the Team tab, the Automatic reminders card lists two rules. Each has one sentence, one switch and the numbers it can be set to.
| Rule | What it does | Default | You can change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tell the project manager when an activity starts soon with no lead | Sends a notice to the project manager when a planned activity starts within the set number of days and nobody leads it | On, 3 days before | 1 to 14 days |
| Tell the lead when a finished activity still needs files | Sends a notice to the lead while files marked as still needed are missing, for the set number of days after the activity ends | On, 14 days after | 1 to 60 days |
Turn a rule off with its switch. Nothing is sent for a rule that is off.
Change many activities at once
- Open Activities and switch to the List view.
- Tick the activities to change.
- Choose what to change: move the dates, set the lead, set the start, or cancel.
- Check the preview. It shows every activity that will change before anything is saved.
- Confirm.
- Done and cancelled activities are not moved.
- To see or change one activity, select its row. The details open in a panel on the right, over the list, so you do not leave the list.
Checks needed before publishing
- The custom field form, including the message for a duplicate name.
- That a notice arrives for each automatic reminder rule on a test project (and whether it arrives by email as well as in the app).
- The bulk change preview and the undo after a bulk change (the server supports undo; check where it appears on screen).
- Do not publish "undo" or the exact delivery channel of reminders until these are seen.