A client record is the shared home for a person's identity, contact details, household context, and related activity. It helps your team understand who the client is before you open intake, case, visit, appointment, or communication records.
• Name and basic identity details.
• Phone numbers, email addresses, and mailing address.
• Household or family relationships.
• Demographics, including living arrangements. See the section below.
• Potential fathers, when your intake forms collect that information. See Potential Fathers on Intake Forms and Client Records.
• Communication preferences.
• A profile photo (optional) on the initials circle in the record header. See Adding Profile Photos to People Records.
• Notes, tasks, calls, attachments, and activity history.
• Links to related appointments, submitted client forms, cases, visits, services, and conversations.
Record a client's living arrangements in the Demographics section of their client record.
Outreach (Love INC) clients record living arrangements and other household-level details in Household Questions on the household record instead. See Clients and Households in Love INC.
If an older living-arrangements entry doesn't show up in Demographics, check with your administrator, some older entries were affected by a data issue that CoolFocus has since fixed.
Open a client's record and go to its Details tab to edit the information staff collect about that person. Details are grouped into sections, and General Info (usually the first section) is where you edit:
• Name
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• Mailing address
• Communication preferences
Update a phone number or other contact detail here any time it changes. This is the same Details tab described in Linking a Note to a Client, where each section also has its own note button.
Reactivating a client: the Active checkbox lives on the Details tab too. See Deactivated clients below.
Working from a visit instead of the client list? Click the client's name to open their full record, including the Details and Demographics tabs.
Open the visit's Workspace tab and General Info to update the shared client information shown there. Those client details belong to the person and are reused across cases and visits. Person Number is CoolFocus's person identifier; External Client ID stores an identifier your organization uses elsewhere. They are separate fields.
Pregnancy centers: an administrator can hide the External Client ID field from the Client Info form for the whole organization, from Settings → Organization Settings → CPC Client Fields. Hiding it only changes what staff see on the form. It does not delete any ID already saved, and clients can still be found by that ID in client search. See Administration Overview.
Pregnancy center (CPC) client records have a Demographics tab, holding background information your team may collect at intake:
• Maiden Name
• Drivers License
• Student Status
• Year Graduated High School
• Year Graduated College
• Employer
• Income Source
• Income Level
• Living Arrangements
• Has Spiritual Beliefs
• Religious Preference
All of these fields are optional. If your organization moved from CoolFocus 3, this is where that same background information now lives.
Education fields, Student Status, Year Graduated High School, and Year Graduated College, can now be entered while you are still creating the client. You no longer have to finish creating the client first and come back to add them.
An intake or client form only fills in a client field, including phone, demographics, or education fields, when that question is mapped to the field on your organization's form or chart template, and the client or staff member completes it. An unmapped question stays on the submitted form as its own record but does not change the client. See From Booking to Visit: How Records Flow for what happens to answers as a form is completed, and Chart Fields That Write to the Client or Case Record for how a mapped chart field shows and confirms its write.
Search for an existing client before creating a new one. Duplicate client records make history harder to trust, especially when visits, cases, notes, messages, or reports end up split across records.
Client search boxes, including Quick Client Entry in the Scheduler and the client lookup used across CoolFocus, match on first name, last name, phone number, person number, and external client ID. If your organization tracks clients with an ID from another system, for example a case management or state system ID like "FCWS-12345", type that ID into the search box to find the matching client directly. Punctuation in the ID, such as dashes, does not need to be removed first. This still works even if your administrator has hidden the External Client ID field from client forms.
• Update contact details when the client provides new information.
• Keep household information current when it affects care or reporting.
• Use notes for context that should remain visible to staff.
• Use tasks when someone needs to follow up later.
• Add attachments only when they belong with the client record.
• Add or update the profile photo from the camera icon on the initials circle when a face photo helps your team recognize the client.
Every pregnancy center (CPC) client has an Active checkbox on their record. When it is turned off, CoolFocus shows a "This client is deactivated" notice at the top of the client's Overview tab so staff can see it right away instead of finding out only when something fails to save.
A deactivated client's record stays fully readable, but they can no longer be given a program benefit: the Program list on Create Benefit stays empty for them, and saving a benefit shows a message explaining that the client is deactivated.
To reactivate a client, open their Details tab and turn Active back on.
If a client has been deactivated, their Overview tab shows a banner reading "This client is deactivated," warning staff that no benefit can be recorded for that client while they are deactivated.
• The banner only shows for a client whose Active status has actually been turned off.
• It stays hidden for every other client, including older records that have no Active value on file, so a client is never flagged as deactivated by mistake.
• To record a benefit for this client again, reactivate their record first.
For pregnancy center (CPC) clients with an open case, the top of the client's activity timeline shows a sticky Active case rail summarizing the case at a glance: the case number, the initial assessment status, the follow-up due date, and the pregnancy outcome (or "In progress" if the case is still open). Click the rail to jump straight to that case. The rail is hidden when the client has no case, or when their case is not currently active.
When a visit includes vital measurements, a Vitals Recorded entry appears on the client's activity timeline. The entry summarizes the values that were captured, for example:
• Height and weight, plus a calculated BMI when both are available.
• Blood pressure and pulse.
• Temperature and oxygen saturation (SpO2).
If the visit is linked to a case, the same vitals entry also appears on that case's timeline.
For pregnancy centers, an ultrasound performed during a visit appears as a "US" chip nested inside that visit's Visit card on the client's activity timeline, rather than as its own separate entry. If the ultrasound is linked to a case, the same summary also appears on that case's timeline. The chip summarizes the clinical details that were recorded, for example:
• Estimated gestational age.
• Whether an intrauterine pregnancy (IUP) was confirmed.
• Fetal heart rate, when observed.
• Scan type: abdominal, transvaginal, or offsite.
• Estimated due date from the sonogram (EDD sono).
If none of these details were recorded, the chip simply reads "Ultrasound performed." Click the Visit card, or the chip, to open the underlying ultrasound record. Ultrasound summaries only show up for users whose permissions include viewing this data.
A clinical chart's review lifecycle writes a plain-language note to the client's timeline as it happens, instead of leaving the story to be pieced together from field-level change history. You'll see an entry such as:
• Chart sent for review, when a chart is sent to a physician or reviewer.
• Chart signed, when the last approval is recorded and the chart becomes read-only.
• Chart denied, including the reviewer's reason, when a reviewer denies a chart.
• Chart returned for corrections, including the reviewer's reason, when a chart is sent back to draft for edits.
Each entry names the chart type (for example, "Ultrasound chart") so it reads as a self-contained story. If the visit is linked to a case, the event appears on that case's timeline; when there is no case, it appears on the visit's timeline instead. It is written once, on whichever of the two the chart can be linked to.
Staff-only: these events are internal notes. They are never shared with the client and never appear in the Client Portal, regardless of your organization's other sharing settings.
This is separate from the Chart Access Log compliance report, which records who opened a chart or review sheet rather than what happened to it. See Reports by Area.
When a client's health history is recorded, a Health History entry appears on the client's activity timeline. The entry summarizes the items that were flagged, for example allergies, latex allergy, stress, medical problems, recent illness, whether the client is in prenatal care, pain and pain rating, vaginal bleeding or spotting, history of tubal ligation or ectopic pregnancy, whether an IUD is in place, and age at first sexual activity. If none of these were flagged, the entry simply shows "Health history recorded."
• Free-text detail fields, such as a written nursing plan or a description of the type of stress a client is experiencing, are not shown on the timeline summary. They remain available on the health history record itself.
• If the health history is linked to a case, the same entry also appears on that case's timeline.
• Deleted health history records, and records without a visit date, are left off the timeline.
• Seeing this entry requires the same kind of permission as other timeline activity types. A user or user group without permission to view health history activity will not see these entries, even if they can otherwise view the client or case. See User Groups: What Staff Can Open and Change.
For pregnancy centers, a client's recorded pregnancy history (also called Previous Pregnancies) can add its own events to that client's activity timeline, marked with a pink baby icon:
• Pregnancy Test Date: the date a previous pregnancy test was recorded, along with the test result when one was entered.
• Pregnancy Outcome: the date and outcome of a previous pregnancy, including how many weeks pregnant the client was at the time, when that was recorded.
• Birth: the date of a birth, along with the baby's name, gender, and weight when those were recorded.
Each pregnancy history record can contribute up to three of these events (test date, outcome, and birth), and only the milestones that have a date are shown. These events are client-only: they appear on the client's own timeline but not on a related case's timeline. They only show up for users whose permissions include viewing Previous Pregnancies records.
For pregnancy centers, a client's recorded dependents (children or other family members tracked on the client record) also add events to that client's activity timeline:
• Dependent Added: the date a dependent record was created, along with the dependent's name and relationship to the client, marked with a blue icon.
• Dependent Birth Date: the dependent's date of birth, when one has been recorded, marked with a pink cake icon.
A dependent only contributes the events that have a date, so a dependent without a recorded date of birth shows only the Dependent Added event. Each event links back to the dependent record. Like the pregnancy history events above, these are client-only: they appear on the client's own timeline, not on a related case's timeline, and only for users whose permissions include viewing Dependents records.
Pregnancy centers can now open Dependents as its own page in the sidebar, under the Clients group. The list shows every dependent recorded across all of your clients in one place, not just the dependents on a single client's record.
From this list you can:
• Filter, sort, and search across all dependents the same way you would on any other CoolFocus list. See Finding Records with Filters.
• Export the results, for example to review household composition across your client base.
• Click a dependent to open their record, or click through to the client they belong to.
This list is available to any user whose permissions include viewing Dependents records.
A client's appointments also add entries to their activity timeline, so staff can see scheduling activity alongside notes, tasks, calls, and visit history without opening the Scheduler:
• Appointment Scheduled: shown at the appointment's start time, with the appointment type, status, center, and resource noted when they're recorded.
• Appointment Rescheduled: shown at the time the appointment was rescheduled, noting the original and new dates and the reschedule reason when one was recorded.
• Appointment Cancelled: shown at the time the appointment was cancelled.
Each entry links back to the appointment in the Scheduler. If an appointment is linked to a case through a visit, the same entries also appear on that case's timeline.
Appointment entries missing even with Show all selected? The timeline's Filter button only controls which activity types you have chosen to hide or show. Whether appointment entries appear at all is a separate, second gate: your user group's View permission on Appointments. A group without that permission never sees appointment entries on any timeline, no matter how the Filter button is set. If Show all is already selected and appointment entries are still missing, ask an administrator to check View access for Appointments under Settings → Security → User Groups, on that group's Permissions tab. See User Groups: What Staff Can Open and Change, under "Timeline entries follow their own View permission." If permission is already granted and the entries are still missing, contact support with the client's name and the appointment's date.
When a document is printed for a client (for example, from a segment or record print run), it appears on the activity timeline as a compact one-line entry, such as "Printed Intake Packet - by Mike," instead of a full activity card. Click it to open the printed document.
When your organization uses client points, a Points tab on the client shows the current balance and recent activity.
• Anyone who can view clients in Care can see the Points tab and balance.
• Awarding or removing points, redeeming items, and voiding a redemption require Material Support permissions that an administrator grants through User Groups.
• Staff without boutique permissions can still see the balance for context during care.
Use Intake for first-visit or pre-service information, Case Management for ongoing care plans and follow-up, and Visits for documenting a specific service interaction.
• Adding Profile Photos to People Records
• Potential Fathers on Intake Forms and Client Records
• Clients and Households in Love INC
• User Groups: What Staff Can Open and Change
• Finding Records with Filters
• Linking a Note to a Client
• From Booking to Visit: How Records Flow
• Chart Fields That Write to the Client or Case Record
• Administration Overview
