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A person’s record in RescueConsole grows with them. Someone who volunteered for two years before making their first donation does not become a new record when you add the donor role — their shift history is still there, and their giving history sits alongside it on the same page. Roles accumulate; they do not replace each other.

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How roles work

Every person starts with at least one role and can hold as many as four: adopter, foster, volunteer, and donor. You add a role by opening the person’s record and selecting it — there is no migration, no new record, and no data to move. From that point forward, a tab appears for the new role showing activity in that context. Removing a role does the same thing in reverse: the tab goes away, but the underlying history does not. If you later re-add the role, the history reappears.

Volunteer role

Shows approved roles and locations, hours logged, shifts attended or cancelled, and sign-off status for grant reporting.

Foster role

Shows current and past placements, the animals fostered, capacity, and care notes from each placement.

Donor role

Shows each gift, the campaign it was attributed to, lifetime giving total, lapsed-giving status, and receipts.

Adopter role

Shows every adoption, the animal and fees involved, receipts, and any adoption follow-up notes.

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Activity per role

Each role tab shows only what is relevant to that role, making it easy for each part of your team to find what they need without wading through unrelated history.
  • Volunteer tab: hours logged, shifts attended, shifts cancelled, qualifications and their expiry dates, and the coordinator’s sign-off status for each period — useful when you are pulling numbers for a grant report.
  • Foster tab: the animals placed, placement dates, how long each foster lasted, and whether the animal was eventually adopted by this person.
  • Donor tab: every gift with its amount, date, campaign, and payment method, plus a lifetime total and a flag if the person has lapsed.
  • Adopter tab: completed adoptions with the animal, fee, receipt, and any post-adoption follow-up.

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Time zones on the person record

RescueConsole stores a time zone on every person record. This matters for volunteers: if your rescue is in one time zone and a volunteer is in another (or you simply want to be precise about shift times), the shift display uses the person’s own time zone. A shift that runs 9 am to 1 pm on Saturday shows as Saturday 9–1 on their side, regardless of server or organization time. Set the person’s time zone on their record in the same place you set their contact details.

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The activity log

Every change to every field on a person record is logged automatically. The activity log shows:
  • What changed: the field name, the value before the change, and the value after it.
  • What was deleted: if a record linked to this person (a shift booking, a foster placement, a donation) is deleted, the log records what it contained.
  • Who made the change: the team member who made the edit, and when.
Because the activity log records the before and after value of every field, mistakes can be put back by hand. If a field was overwritten incorrectly, open the log, find the entry, and type the previous value back in — you have the exact text to restore.

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Checklists on person records

Workflows configured in Settings can run on person records, not only on animal records. A volunteer onboarding checklist, for example, can be applied to a person when they are approved, creating the tasks your coordinator needs to complete before that person’s first shift. Each checklist step can be marked complete independently, and the checklist stays on the person’s record so you can see what has been done and what is still outstanding.

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Custom fields per role tab

Custom fields on people are configured in Settings → Record Layouts. You can add fields to the main person record (visible regardless of role) or to a specific role tab (visible only when that person holds the relevant role). This means your donor tab can carry a field like “Planned giving interest” that never appears on a volunteer’s record, and your volunteer tab can carry “T-shirt size” without cluttering the adopter view.
1

Open Settings → Record Layouts

Select the People record type and choose the tab you want to modify: the core record or a specific role tab.
2

Add a custom field

Create a new field with a name, type (text, number, date, dropdown, checkbox), and optionally mark it required.
3

Set visibility

Assign the field to the appropriate tab. Fields on role tabs appear only when the person holds that role.
4

Reorder and save

Drag fields into the order you want them displayed, then save the layout. The change takes effect immediately on all person records.