A note captures written context on a record: what happened, what was decided, or what the next person should know. Notes are how your team keeps a shared memory instead of relying on hallway conversations.
Attention Flag → pinned note: The older Attention Flag field is replaced by pinned notes. Full steps: Pinned Notes and Attention Flags.
Coming from CF3, or migrated from another version? "Notes" now means several different things depending on where you're looking, and this trips up a lot of teams right after migration:
• A note on a client, case, or visit record — what this article covers. Shows up on that record's timeline, filterable and exportable like any other activity.
• An appointment's "Notes" box — free text tied to a single appointment (visible on the appointment panel). It does not appear on the client's Notes timeline.
• A migrated CF3 "Description" field — some CF3 note-like text fields (for example on appointments) were migrated into a Description field rather than becoming a linked Note. Description text stays on the record it was migrated to; it won't show up in the Notes grid or a client's Notes timeline either.
• Activity Type "note" entries created from a call, task, or attachment — these ARE Notes (see Activity Type below), and do appear on the person's timeline.If you can't find a note you expect to see on a client's timeline, check whether it's actually sitting in an appointment's Notes box or a migrated Description field instead — those are separate from the Notes system described below.
Add a note from any record. Keep it short, factual, and specific enough that a teammate reading it later understands the situation without asking you.
Open a Clients segment and choose Batch Add Note from the segment's action menu to add one identical note to every client in that segment, instead of opening each client record one at a time.
• Batch Add Note works on Clients segments only.
• A single batch run supports up to 1,000 records. If the segment holds more, narrow the segment's filter before running the batch.
• Type the note text once in the dialog. CoolFocus creates a separate, individually linked note on every matching client's timeline with that exact text.
• Before the notes are created, type the confirmation phrase shown in the dialog (for example "add note to 42 clients") to guard against running the batch against the wrong group by mistake.
• Each note created this way records which segment it came from, so you can trace it back later if a note's origin is unclear.
• You need permission to batch-update Clients and permission to create notes on clients. Without both, Batch Add Note won't appear or won't run.
Notes have a Person field that links the note directly to the client (or other contact) it belongs to, instead of just describing the related record in text. When a note is added on a client's activity, request, service received, contribution, conversation, or visit, CoolFocus links the note to that person automatically. You can also set or change the Person on a note yourself.
Because the note is linked to the actual client record, it shows up reliably in the Notes grid's Linked to column and can be traced back to the client for reporting and filtering, even if the note's related record changes or is renamed later.
Every note has a Person field showing who it's about. CoolFocus fills this in automatically based on the record the note was added to (a person, a request, a service received record, a contribution, a conversation, or a visit), so notes stay tied to the right person even when they're logged from a related record. You can change the Person field by hand if needed.
Every note has an Activity Type field, a shared classifier also used on calls, tasks, and attachments. Use it to tag what kind of note this is (for example, a category like "General" or a more specific type your organization defines).
You can save a note with only an Activity Type set, even if you leave the note's name and body blank. This makes it possible to log that a certain kind of contact happened without writing anything else down.
If your organization has a type with the same name defined both as a shared system default and as your own organization's custom version, the Activity Type picker only shows it once, and selecting it applies your organization's version.
Some activity types are restricted: your organization might mark a sensitive note type (like a medical note) so it's only visible to the user groups granted access to it. If a note's type is restricted and your group hasn't been granted access, you won't see that note, and you can't create or edit notes tagged with it. See User Groups: What Staff Can Open and Change for how administrators grant access. Managing the list of types (including marking one restricted) is covered in Managing Dropdown List Values.
Viewing a restricted type and creating with it are separate grants. When you add a new note, the Type picker only offers activity types your group can actually create with, so it won't offer a type your save would then be rejected for. Opening an existing note still shows its current type even if your group only has view access to it. If a save is rejected because of a restricted type, CoolFocus now shows the specific reason instead of a generic "failed to create note" message.
Organizations set up for Love INC: Community Assistance don't see the Activity Type field on notes at all. The default Activity Type values are geared toward pregnancy center medical contexts and aren't relevant to community assistance work, so CoolFocus hides the field automatically for these organizations rather than showing values that don't apply. No setup is needed on your end; this is based on your organization's configuration.
Pin a note to keep it visible above the rest of a person's notes and activity, so anyone opening the record sees it right away. Pinning is how CoolFocus surfaces something everyone should know before diving into the rest of the history, the same job the older version's yellow "Attention Flag" banner used to do.
Step-by-step pin, banner, and privacy: Pinned Notes and Attention Flags.
The Pinned section of the timeline has a chevron button next to its heading that collapses or expands the whole section. Collapse it when you want to scroll straight into the regular activity history without scrolling past every pinned item first. Your choice only affects that viewing session; the section opens expanded again the next time you view the timeline.
If your organization used the earlier version's Attention Flag field, that flag no longer shows as a banner. Instead, it syncs automatically into a pinned note titled Attention Flag on the person's record. CoolFocus keeps this note in step with the legacy flag going forward: when staff update the flag in the older system, the pinned note updates to match.
• Clearing the legacy flag unpins the note instead of deleting it, so the history stays on the record.
• The synced note has no Activity Type by default, so anyone who can see the person's notes can see it, matching how the flag was visible to everyone before.
• You can retype the synced note to a specific Activity Type, such as Medical, if you want its visibility scoped like other restricted note types going forward.
The Notes grid and export now include the linked person's contact details as their own columns: Contact First Name, Contact Last Name, Contact Email, and Contact Phone. These are filled in automatically from the note's Person field, so you can see or export who a note is about without opening the record. They're display-only columns pulled from the linked contact, so they don't appear as fields when importing data.
The Notes grid can be exported for every client at once instead of one client at a time. Each row includes Contact First Name, Contact Last Name, Contact Email, and Contact Phone columns pulled from the linked Person, so exported notes are attributable and filterable by client, and searchable by the client's name.
• Summarizing a conversation or meeting.
• Recording a decision and the reason behind it.
• Leaving handoff context for the next person.
• Logging the same update across a whole group of clients at once, using Batch Add Note.
• Write for the next reader, not just yourself.
• Stick to facts; avoid opinions that could be misread later.
• Follow your organization's privacy policy: notes can contain sensitive personal information, so only record what belongs on the record.
If you try to add a note on a client and CoolFocus shows "cannot verify note access", your user group has not been granted permission to work with notes yet. This is a permissions setup issue, not a bug in your note.
An office administrator can fix it:
Open Settings, then go to Security and choose User Groups.
Open the user group assigned to the person seeing the error.
On the Permissions tab, find Notes in the module list and grant View and Create (and Update, if that person should also edit notes).
Save the group.
Notes follow the same Record Permissions grid as every other module. See User Groups: What Staff Can Open and Change for how View, Create, Update, and Delete work, and Users for how to find which group someone is in.
• Pinned Notes and Attention Flags
• Activities Overview
• Tasks
• Attachments
• User Groups: What Staff Can Open and Change
• Managing Dropdown List Values
