Advanced cemetery options
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Advanced options for your cemetery are found in their own dedicated popup. Click on the name of your cemetery in the upper-left corner of CIMS, then click "Edit cemetery settings". This opens the edit cemetery settings popup.
Custom inputs (aka user-defined fields)
Automatic burial & deed numbering
Hide input fields & parts of the CIMS interface
Basic cemetery information
The "Basic" tab of the edit cemetery settings popup is where you can change your cemetery's name or address, choose the default date format, or add remarks. Some of these fields might be used in custom reports, if you have any.
Custom inputs (aka user-defined fields)
Use the "Advanced" tab to add, edit and delete custom inputs (also known as user-defined fields). User-defined fields can be added for spaces, burials, markers, deeds, care funds, customers or work orders.
What is a user-defined field?
Say you want to track something in CIMS but you don't see a field dedicated to it. You can add this field to the program. Any data you save in this custom input will be saved in CIMS and searchable. Common examples of custom inputs are "Book number" and "Page number", or "Lot card number" for cemeteries tracking where the original information about a space sale was stored. Some cemeteries choose to track a customer's birth place, or add a link to their online obituary.
Add a user-defined field
Scroll until you find the section you want to add a user-defined field to (space, burials, markers, etc.). Click the navy blue "New" button. Add a label, choose a type, then click "Add". It is not necessary to click "Update cemetery settings" at the bottom of the edit cemetery settings popup, but you will need to refresh your webpage to see the new fields you have added.
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Text input - single line of text | Most common type. Good for short text.
Example: Birth place: "Jackson Hole, WY" |
| Text input - multi- lines of text | Useful for longer blocks of text.
Example: Obituary: "Rev. Samuel Smith was born in 1954 on his family farm in ...... [text continues, this example does not]" |
| Dropdown select | Define a set of options for users inputting data to choose from. Excellent choice when you have a limited set of possibilities and want to make sure users don't spell things 5 different ways or get too creative. Use commas with no spaces to separate your options.
Example: Funeral service location: "Graveside,Whitehill Chapel,Louis Family Funeral Parlor,None" |
| Date input | Save a date in CIMS.
Example: Burial permit issued: "11/04/2009" |
| Numeric input | Good for numbers and costs.
Example: Down payment amount: "1500" |
| Last name lookup | Link a customer record to this custom input. Acts like other last-name lookups on the site, where you search by last name for a customer, then a list of results from your database will appear for you to choose from. Read about customer records here.
Example: Funeral director: "Francine Devine" |
| External link | Save a URL to your database. Useful for YouTube links to obituaries.
Example: Obituary video: "www.youtube.com/my-video-url" |
Edit a user-defined field
Click on the name of a user-defined field, type in your changes, then click "Update cemetery settings" at the bottom of the edit cemetery settings popup. Do the same to change dropdown options.
Delete a user-defined field
Click the red trash can icon to the right of a user-defined field to delete it. A popup will ask you confirm this action. Be careful, as you will delete any data associated with this field from CIMS!
Search a user-defined field
The best part about user-defined fields is you can search by them! Whatever section of your site you added a field for (space, burials, markers, etc.), just go to the search tab, choose that type, scroll down, and you will see your custom inputs listed at the bottom.
Rename cemetery levels
Does your cemetery use the term "Plot" instead of "Space"? or "Area" instead of "Section"? You can personalize your cemetery section-by-section. In the edit cemetery settings popup, click the "Configuration" tab. The top section will allow you to specify what label each section of your cemetery uses. Change the "Universal levels" to change what the cemetery uses in general. Choose a section from that dropdown to change the labels for that section specifically.
To make a change, make your selection of section from the dropdown. Type in your changes in the appropriate fields. Click the green "Save levels term/label" button. When satisfied, click "Update cemetery settings" at the bottom-right of the edit cemetery settings popup, as your webpage needs to refresh to reflect these changes.
Cost updating tool
Cemeteries often have to raise prices on a periodic basis. CIMS makes this easy with the cost updating tool.
In the edit cemetery settings popup, click the "Configuration" tab. Scroll down to the cost updating tool section. Choose to refine what area of your cemetery costs are updated for using the "Section" dropdown. By default, all sections of your cemetery will update. When you click a section, you may choose to further refine what areas of your cemetery update by block and lot. Once you have made your selection, enter a cost, then click the green "Update space costs" button. Your cemetery's button may have a slightly different name.
The cost updating tool will only change the cost of available, reserved, and restricted spaces.
Automatic burial & deed numbering
Calendar subscriptions
The CIMS documentation has a page dedicated to the calendar, read it to learn how you might show CIMS calendar events on your third-party calendar app, such as Google, Outlook or iCal.
Custom space statuses
Hide input fields & parts of the CIMS interface
Map shapes (Platinum only)
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Configuration
Burial & Deed Numbering
Enter in the starting numbers for automatice Burial and/or Deed numbering. IF you do not want to use automatic numbering then leave these fields blank and the "Deed Number Active" check mark un-checked. If you want Automatic Burial Numbering then you must of a corresponding User Defined Tracking field under Burials on the Advanced tab of the Edit Cemetery popup with the label of "Burial Number" (label is Case Sensitive).
Additional Status
If you need more space statuses than the following:
- Available
- Sold
- Sold With Bruial
- Reserved
- Restricted
Additional statuses are treated similar to "Available" in that no extra information such as customers or sales agents. Also no burials, deed, permission, etc. information can be added as long as a spaces is assigned a custom status. You can add up to 3 additional statuses here. Examples of additional statuses are:
- Needs Research (meaning your old records are incomplete and you are not positive if a space is available for sales or not)
- Cemetery owned
- ???
All custom statuses will appear in the map legend and be in the status dropdowns in the left side Space search, and right side Owner tab.
