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.
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.
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 and Permissions for how administrators grant access.
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.
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.
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.
