Contact Attributes

Contact attributes are user defined fields of information you wish to maintain about a Parent Contact. Contact Attributes are different to Student Attributes:

Student Attributes are pieces of information about a Student, available to all Parent Contacts for that Student
Contact Attributes are fields specific to a Parent Contact. They are only visible to that Contact, and not to other Contacts for the Student

To access Contact Attributes click your user name at the top right of the page, and click the Settings option.

You can change the Sort Order by clicking the Sort By Name button, or search for a particular Attribute by entering keywords in the search box and clicking the search button.

Click the Action button to Add a New Attribute, or to Show All and remove the effects of a search.

Click the Edit button at the end of each row to view the detail of a Attribute. You may be shown an alert warning:

Editing an Attribute that has already been used for a Student could lead to incorrect display of information if you change the Attribute's name or options. Are you sure you wish to proceed?

The warning is ensuring you understand that if one or more Students already have values for this Attribute, you could cause confusion by editing the Attribute, for example, changing the name of the attribute. You will also not be able to edit any options (in the case of a Checkbox field or a List field).

There are three types of Contact Attribute field:

Text box - a plain text field
List - a drop down list of options, where one option can be selected
Checkboxes - a list of checkboxes when one or more options can be selected

Attribute Required?

Is the User required to enter a value when editing a Contact?

Can be Edited?

By default Attributes can be edited, either by a User updating a Contact in EdSmart, or a parent contact updating a field on a Parent Slip. But you can make Attributes Read Only, so imported values cannot be updated. If the value is a web page link, it will be automatically make into a clickable link when displayed - perfect for a link to an online payment page.

Include in Exports?

You can nominate an Attribute to be always included in exports of Parents Slips.

Edit Parent Contact

The Attribute fields will be displayed and can be edited as part of a Student record:

When you create a new Parent Slip the Contact Attributes will be designated by an icon, to distinguish them from Student Attributes: