Understanding Entities in Action Builder

An Entity is anything that can be stored as information or data in a database, having its own distinct and independent existence. In Action Builder, entities empower you to organize and monitor the individuals and groups vital to your organization, tailored to suit your organizers' needs.

When you create a new entity type, you open up avenues to efficiently categorize these individuals and groups according to your organizational objectives. By default, every organization starts with the foundational entity type: People.

This allows you to add individual persons to your campaigns, capturing their name and contact information. Moreover, you have the flexibility to create an unlimited number of alternative entity types to track various aspects pertinent to your organization. For instance, you might introduce a "Non-profit" entity type to monitor non-profit organizations and then add individual non-profits with relevant details to your campaigns.

When adding or editing an entity type, you'll encounter several key options:

Entity Type Label (plural and singular)

These fields determine how the entity type appears in different contexts within the app. For instance, a list of individuals might be labeled "People" in the interface, though this label can be customized.

Name (multi or single)

This option dictates the naming convention when adding a new entity. For example, "People" may require first, middle, and last names, while "Non-profits" may not.

Address, Date of Birth, Email, Phone, Preferred Language

Each option allows you to toggle the relevance of corresponding data when adding or editing an entity of this type.

Entity types can be activated or deactivated for specific campaigns in the campaign's administrative settings. You can easily identify which campaigns have an entity type active by accessing the entity type details and clicking the provided link.