User Accounts Overview

Like most software applications, DonorPoint controls access to what a user can see and do. These controls are implemented using the following concepts in DonorPoint:

  • Objects - the “things” in DonorPoint, such as contacts, organizations, fundraisers, catalogs, pages or forms, donations, registrations, reports, etc.
  • Account - the container of objects for a DonorPoint customer (like you) that is separate and distinct from other Accounts.
  • User Accounts - those who have some level of access to objects in DonorPoint, who access the account via logging in with a username and password. Users are associated with an Account and, based on their type, can have total basic permissions on all objects in the Account (as an “Admin”) or specific limited permissions (as a “User”).
  • Permissions - discrete definitions of what actions can be performed related to specific types of objects in DonorPoint. Examples would be to “List Contacts,” “Read Events” or “Create Custom Properties.”

For Pages, Catalogs and Community fundraisers, the Status field of the fundraiser controls whether the public can access it without being a logged-in user. However other specific fields on the fundraiser (e.g. items after their end date, private payment options) may be accessible for only logged-in users.

User Accounts

A User Account is a contact in DonorPoint that has a username (login name) and password, and other properties which grant them access to see and do things in DonorPoint. There are three types of user accounts:

  • Admins - these are the “super users” who have all the permissions possible within your account, with the exception of Special Permissions, described below.
  • Users - these are users who can access the back-end of DonorPoint (also called the /admin application) and can be granted permissions to see and do specific things in your Account.
  • Community - these are user accounts which cannot access the back-end DonorPoint application but can log in to pages, catalogs, and community fundraisers to access features which are hidden to the public. Community accounts are useful for staff or volunteers who should access the private or hidden content on pages - entering transactions on items that have expired, or using offline payment methods, for examples. Community Users are also used for the leaders of Community, or peer-to-peer, fundraisers in their own fundraising efforts, and for Employees in private Workplace Campaigns.

**When you signed up to DonorPoint, a user account was created with the given contact information. That user was made the Primary User Account on your account, which is the contact person for your account. That user account was also automatically made an admin on your account. The Primary User Account will have received an activation email when your DonorPoint account was created. **

Because they are contacts like any Contact, all types of user accounts can have a transaction history, email history, relationships, etc. associated with them. This means that staff with user accounts do not need additional accounts in DonorPoint to contain their history as constituents of your organization.

Note that the general public - donors, volunteers, etc. - who do not need access to the DonorPoint back-end or to private pages do not need to login to DonorPoint, and do not need user accounts. Generally though if a user is logged in while accessing a DonorPoint page, the transaction created by that page will be automatically linked to their user account (see Impersonating Another Contact on Pages).

Special Permissions

A small number of permissions to DonorPoint functions are not initially granted to users of your account. These include sending bulk emails, editing Javascript in forms, and importing data. Contact DonorPoint support at help@donorpoint.com for admin access to these functions.

Common Tasks

If you are a one-person shop or everyone with access to DonorPoint will have the same level of access, this is all you need to know about controlling access to data and functions in DonorPoint.