What are profile fields, and why are they important?
Profile fields represent key information you want to collect and update about volunteers. These typically include contact details like phone numbers and addresses but can extend to other essential data, such as emergency contacts or even t-shirt size. Essentially, profile fields capture any key information your organization needs to know about its volunteers.
When deciding whether a piece of information should be a profile field or a standard form field, ask yourself the following:
Will I need to import this information for volunteers?
Do I want this information to appear on the Profile tab on the volunteer's profile card?
Is it something I'll manually input or update about a volunteer?
Will I need to reference or export it often for queries or scheduling?
Do I want it to show as a column in the Directory?
If you answered yes to any of these, creating a profile field is likely the right choice.
Managing your profile fields
In the main navigation, go to Settings and click on Profile Fields. You'll see a default view with pre-existing fields. The name and email fields are mandatory for the Timecounts account login, while other fields are fixed and appear in the user profile for volunteers to update their details. These fields cannot be deleted. However, you are not required to include them on your forms or ask volunteers to answer these questions. You have complete control over the information you collect about volunteers, not Timecounts.
To add a new profile field
Click the Add New button in the top right corner. A popup will guide you through the process.
For example, create a database field for 't-shirt size. 'The first step is to select your Field Type. This determines the format or combination of fields that will work best for the information you want to collect. Since we only want users to select one option, we will choose Multiple Choice.
Next, you will be asked to create a Label for your field. This label is for internal use only, it won't be visible to your volunteers. Once the label is created, it cannot be edited. If you make a mistake, you'll need to delete the field and start over. This limitation helps ensure data consistency, since changing a label later could result in mismatched or inaccurate data.
The final step is to edit how the field will appear to volunteers when used in forms or displayed on their profile cards. All parts of this field are editable, and unlike the label, you can update the content at anytime. Just keep in mind that editing a profile field may affect responses you have already received.
You may want to edit the title to appear as a question. You can also customize the default text, for example, Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large or choose values that better fit your specific needs.
Once you save your tags, you’ll see them listed in the profile field options, the form builder database field section, and the profile card when you click to edit. After creating several database fields, you can drag them to reorder their appearance on the profile card.
Pro feature: Automatically tag volunteers based on their answers
With a Pro plan, you can associate tags with responses to certain field types, like Multiple Choice. This powerful feature lets you automatically tag volunteers based on their selections—saving time and making it easier to filter, group, and take action later. To get started, make sure you’ve created your tags under Settings > Tags. Then simply link them to the answers in your custom field.