As a professionally designed software program for high-volume use, ODB's features encourage volunteers and staff to put in complete information, and discourage them from entering incorrect information, to save you time later.

ZIP Code Lookup. ODB allows you to turn on a ZIP code feature that automatically fills in ZIP codes, or looks up city and state based on ZIP code, for you. To install this feature, first connect your PC to the Internet. Then open the Settings window using the wrench icon in the upper right-hand corner of the ODB screen. Finally, click Download ZIP Code File. By default, the file will be downloaded to the location where your database is stored (which could be on the network, to give your whole office access to this feature). Or you could choose to have it install to the program files folder (in which case the ODB uninstaller is able to find and remove it). After the download completes - four minutes over a standard 56K modem - it should automatically turn ZIP-code lookups on. If you are not sure, exit and restart ODB.

Once installed, you don't have to do anything special to use this feature. As soon as you finish typing a ZIP code in the People Entry screen, or as soon as a city or state you are typing results in a match, the system will update the appropriate field(s) for you.

Note that the ZIP-code file available for download provides United States ZIP codes. If your group is based in Mexico and you have access to data for Mexican postal codes, please contact us and we can show you how to use this data with ODB.

Area Code Identification. ODB's ZIP Code database has the ability to display the location (city and state) associated with a phone number, when you hold the mouse cursor on top of a phone field in the data entry screens. It also includes geo-coding information that could be used to search for other records with addresses within a certain distance (say five miles) of the address of the selected record. If you would like to do this, please contact us, we need sponsors to add this feature to ODB.

Keypress Filtering. ODB will not let someone enter invalid information, such as numbers in the space for a State abbreviation, or random letters in the middle of a phone number.

Warnings on Bad Data. The program checks the validity of all email addresses. Also, if the user enters street number and street name information in the wrong place, the program will offer to move it to the correct place.

Lookup by ID Number. ODB prints the ID number of a donor on every donation slip, so that you can use the number as a shortcut to access the record. If you are entering a donation slip that has an ID number of "555", all you have to do is type "#555" into the main search box of ODB to open the record, or "$555" to add a donation to that record.

Required Fields. It is possible to configure ODB to require you to fill in a "type" code for each person or group. When turned on, a record may not be saved unless this menu item is chosen. By requiring people to fill in the "type" code, you enable your organizers and fundraisers to use this information more efficiently when generating lists. It is also possible to turn off the feature that requires you to save the geographic area covered by a group, as well as the organization type. You may set ODB to require comments for each record, making sure that you can track the source of each entry. You may also set ODB to require that you assign a SRC code and/or a type code when you import data. See section B of this manual for details.

Automatically Click on X for found record Features:

Default Category, Subcategory, Individual/Organizational Type features.

Accessibility Features: Almost all of the buttons are accessible using tabs and keyboard equivalents, for people who are not able to easily use a mouse or prefer not to do so. We would love feedback on these accessibility features! The Alt key is used to access the keyboard equivalents, which are indicated by letters underlined on buttons.

Here is the full list of keyboard equivalents available on the "main menu" screen:

Alt-A—Activities codes

Alt-C—Constituencies codes

Alt-D—Voter/Volunteer/Union/Coalition ID

Alt-E—Edit

Alt-G—New Pledge (if button is showing)

Alt-H—Show/Hide Details

Alt-I—Issues codes

Alt-L—Clone

Alt-M—Copy Emails

Alt-N—New Record

Alt-O—New Note

Alt-P—Print

Alt-R—SRC/Event codes

Alt-S—Search

Alt-T—Mass Action

Alt-V—VID Codes

Alt-W—View History

Alt-X—Import/Export

Alt-Y—Payment History

Shift-F10—Bring up the right-click menus on several fields that are in the main menu.

Help Functions. To call up this user guide from within ODB, click the question mark ("?") button in the upper right-hand corner of the ODB window and choose "Help & Documentation…" Then click "Open User Guide." To display tips when selecting or importing records, help buttons are also available on those screens.