Blog posts
Product Updates
Product Updates
Product Update: August 2019
David Simpson
August 1, 2019
Auto number fields are number fields that are automatically set by Beacon. They start at 1, and +1 for every new record that's created.
Auto-numbers are really useful whenever you'd like to assign a unique number to each record, for example if you want to set a member, donor or volunteer ID.
You can convert any number field into an auto-number field by checking the box below the field type when you create or edit the field.
You can find out more about auto-number fields in this docs article.
You have no doubt noticed our fancy new login interface by now! Unfortunately, when we released the new system last month some users reported problems logging in to Beacon. This ain't good, and I'm really sorry if you had trouble. We've reviewed and redesigned the mechanisms in place to restrict logins from new devices which have solved these problems.
You can read more about using multiple devices to access Beacon in this article. This is also a good time to remind you that we strongly recommmend activating two factor authentication on your account. Also, here's our guide to choosing a secure password.
We've completely overhauled the mechanism we use to generate PDF exports. If you haven't tried them yet, export templates make it really easy for you to pull data out of Beacon and present it either as a configurable CSV or a very handsome PDF. You can see an example here.
Getting your data into Beacon is always a very high priority for the product team. Our import system is already very powerful (Beacon breezes through importing 50,000 rows without breaking a sweat) but we're always striving to make it smarter, too. This month we've added a number of improvements to make data imports better:
This month you can expect the much anticipated release of our brand new memberships system, along with updates to donation forms, even more CSV import improvements, and a whole host of UX updates!
