Issues surrounding the Primary Contact for an Opportunity

Hi @Rob Jones at ASE, thanks for posting!  I think Connect Fields might be a good option for you. This is a type of custom field that allows you to define relationships between different records in Copper. So you can create a Connect Field to link Tutors to their Courses, or to link Students to their Courses.

Let’s take a look in the context of your two bullet points -

• We have Courses that are co-taught, and so ideally would have two Primary Contacts.

You are correct that you can only have one Primary Contact on a Course/Opportunity. But Connect Fields allow you to have multiple People linked at the same time. Here’s an example:

In this example, Ray Faulkner is the Primary Contact (maybe he’s the head tutor?). I’ve also added Michelle Lee under the Tutors connect field because she is a co-tutor for that course.

If I open up either Tutor, we’ll also see a list of the Course they were Tutors for.

Let’s go through your other question before we talk about how to set up a Connect Field.

• Some of our organisation’s staff (including myself) also act as Tutors on Courses, but we do not appear as Person Records, and so can’t be added as Primary Contacts.

This is a great question. You have two options here, depending on how you want to set it up.

1. Add those staff members as People in Copper - this will allow you to add them as a Primary Contact, a Related Person, or - if you build the Connect Field - as a Tutor. When you add a Person who is also a user, the system will not sync their emails so you don’t have to worry about internal emails being added. But it will sync their internal Calendar Events. If you want to avoid that, you can leave their email address blank when you create them as a Person. I also suggest adding some indicator to show that they’re internal - in the example below I put (internal staff) in the name.

   

    

2. Alternatively, you can set up a separate Connect Field that specifically can only link to other Copper users. So instead of a single connect field for “Tutors” you would have one for “Tutors (external)” and a separate one for “Tutors (internal)”. This means you don’t have to add your users as People. But personally I would recommend option #1 over this one to avoid having extra fields.

Ok great, so how do we set up a Connect Field?

1. Go to Settings > Customize > Manage Fields on Records > Opportunities > Create Field.
2. Select Connect Field as the Field Type. For Relationship, select Custom Relationship.
3. In the left side box, select what the field name should be on the Course/Opportunity (“Tutor” or “Tutors”) and what kind of record it should link to (People). In the right side box you’ll choose what the link should be called when you open up a Person (“Tutor for” in this case).
4. Click Create Field. Next time you open a Course / Opportunity, you’ll see a field for Tutor. And next time you open up a Person, you’ll see a field for Tutor For.

Some notes on Connect Fields

Connect Fields are great for marking relationships but they do come with some limitations - 

• These connections would exist in addition to the Primary Contact, Related People, etc. So you will have to fill them out manually.
• You cannot import or export Connect Fields
• Connect Fields won’t work with workflow automation
• Connect Fields can’t be pulled into our reporting system

If these are not dealbreakers for you then they might work for your use case! :)

Anyways that was a lot of info so let me know if that was helpful or if I can clarify anything!