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Setting up Connect Fields (Lookup Fields)
Setting up Connect Fields (Lookup Fields)

Setting up Connect Fields (Lookup Fields)

Success at Copper avatar
Written by Success at Copper
Updated over 10 months ago
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The Connect Fields feature allows you to create a custom relationship between a single record and multiple other records. If you need to go beyond using the 'Related' section of a record profile to define why these records are related, or if you need to create a 1:many relationship between records, connect fields are here for you.

For example, you can use connect fields to indicate the relationship between a manager and his/her direct reports. Other common examples for connect fields include keeping track of referrals, parent and child companies, multiple opportunity owners, investors, and more. Using Connect fields can help you save time keeping track of relationships since it only requires one data entry.

In this module, we'll tackle the following:

Understand Connect Fields

Connect fields can appear on every record except tasks. In other words, you can create connect fields for leads, people, companies, opportunities and projects.

Connect fields follow a similar pattern:

  • Record A

  • Is connected via _____ circumstances

  • To record B

And

  • Record B

  • Is connected via _____ circumstances

  • To record A

Let's look at some examples.

You might choose to connect two different records:

connect_fields_1.png

You can relate two of the same record type:

connect_fields_2.png

Once you've created a connect field, both sides of the relationship will be shown on a record. Here we can see that person record Ada Lee is managed by Alex Gordon, and she manages Carrie Sams, Laura Rivero, and Sam Campbell:

1.png

On the person record for Carrie Sams, we can see she is managed by Ada Lee and does not manage anyone herself:

2.png

Beyond connecting two records together, you can connect a record and a user. Note that a company user doesn't have a record profile, so this is a uni-directional field. That means it will only show up on the profile of the record the user is connected to:

connect_fields_3.png

The result of creating this connect field would look like this:

referred clients connect field.png

As you can see, only the relationship from the user to the lead is listed. We don't list the relationship from the lead to the user because there is no user record for it to show up on.

We do not currently have field validations, 3rd party integrations, import, lead conversion, bulk-edit, merge, or global search for connect fields.

Connect fields cannot be added to a list view as a column

There is a limit of 30 connections per connect field on a single record.

Define your Workflow

There are two ways to establish a relationship between records in Copper, so it's important to ask yourself a few questions to determine which field type is best for you:

  1. Do you want to customize the relationship between two fields? In other words, is it enough to say that a person is related to a company, or would you like to include a field name that explains the relationship?

    • If you want to explain the relationship, use Connect Fields, as these let you customize the field label.

    • If it's enough to say one record type is related to another and not define the relationship further, you can just relate two fields together.

    • If yes, use the related fields feature. Connect fields won't enforce email or logged syncing between records.

    • If not, use Connect Fields or Related Fields depending on your response to question 1.

  2. Do you want to relate two records of the same type together (e.g. a person to a person)?

    • If yes, use connect fields.

    • If no, use either connect fields or related fields depending on your answers to questions 1 and 2.

Create a Connect Field

  1. Sign into your Copper account, and click 'Settings.'

  2. Choose 'Manage Fields on Records' under the 'Customize' section.

  3. Click the record type you want to create the field for. (Note: We don't currently have a record type for 'Company User' so you need to initiate a field that's related to a company user from the related record type).

    6.png
  4. Click the button to 'Create Field.'

  5. Set the 'Type' as 'Connect Field.'

  6. In the 'Relationship' drop-down, you can select 'Custom Relationship' to build a connect field from scratch. You may also see options for pre-built connect fields created Copper depending on the record type you're creating the field for. You're welcome to choose these instead:

    4.png
  7. Now you'll build the actual relationship between the fields. In the example below, we can see that each label describes the relationship between these two people records. One is the manager of the other, so the label for the manager's person record is 'Manager Of,' and the label for the direct report's person record is 'Managed by.'

    5.png
  8. Click 'Create Field.'

  9. When you open a record to see the field displayed, you can click into each field label to fill it out. You can click the 'Add Connection' link to connect more than one record to the existing record:

    3.png

Filter by Connect Fields

Copper also lets you filter your records by the connections and relationships you’ve defined with Connect Fields. This allows you to filter your lists to see records that fall under any, all or none of the connections you’ve defined.

This may sound confusing in the abstract, so let’s use a common example; a manager/managee hierarchy.

Let’s say you’ve set up a Connect Field as “Manager of” and “Managed by” and your two managers are Frank and Ada. You want to see people who are Managed by Frank and Ada, so you add them to the filter.

Using Connect Field Filtering, if you filter to say…

  • Match ANY of the following - you will see people records who are managed by either Frank or Ada.

  • Match ALL of the following - you will see people records who are managed by both Frank and Ada.

  • Match NONE of the following - you will see people records who are not managed by Frank or Ada.

Still have questions?

Still have questions? Ask in our Community, and get answers from our Customer Success Team as well as fellow users.

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