ODB provides shortcuts that help you save steps when entering data, especially when pasting information into ODB from other sources. Currently, there is one shortcut available in the Main Menu screen, and there are three shortcuts in the People Entry screen. (These shortcuts will also be available in the Groups Entry screen, soon.)

1. Repeated Comments. Often you will want to enter a group of names from a sign-up sheet and have a comment associated with those names, such as indicating at which event they signed up. To do this, right-click the New button and you will see two menu options labeled "Add with Repeated Comment from Selected Record" and "Add with Last Repeated Comment." This menu will vary, depending on what is selected on the screen. For instance, if you had entered one record with the comment "Clambake Fundraiser" you could choose "Add with Repeated Comment from Selected Record" to initiate entry of the rest of the people on your list.

2. Dated Comments. Often you will want to add a comment to someone's record reflecting a phone conversation you had with that person. If you want to automatically put today's date into the comment area of a person (or group), all you have to do is right-click the Edit button and choose Add Dated Comment.

3. Cloning Options. Similar to Repeated Comments, there is a right-click menu available on the Clone button. This allows you to clone a record with or without all of the tracking codes associated with it. So you can decide whether you just want to copy someone's address or whether you want to copy all of the attributes you have assigned to that person.

4. Phone Number Pasting. When you paste a phone number into any of the three phone number fields, bad characters and leading "1's" are automatically removed and it is formatted with hyphens for consistency.

5. Street Name/Number Pasting. When you paste an address containing both a street name and a street number into the street number field, ODB will automatically split the address for you. When you paste it into the street name field, ODB will offer to split the address for you when you click Save Changes.

6. City/State/ZIP Pasting. When you paste city, state, and ZIP code information into the city field, ODB will automatically split it up into the component fields.

7. Contextual Search. When you right-click on any part of a person's address in the Main Menu preview pane, ODB will show you menus that allow you to find people with similar addresses. The same applies to phone numbers, and to the field that displays a person's type or district information. This is an extremely powerful feature as it bypasses the need to do customized queries for some searches.

8. Contextual Code Search. When you right-click on any tracking code shown in the main menu detailed preview pane, ODB will show you a menu allowing you to find people sharing the exact same set of tracking codes, or any of the tracking codes used by the person or group you are currently browsing.

9. Smart Cursor Placement. When you do a search that yields no results, the cursor will jump back to the search box. When your search has results, the cursor will jump down to the results box (in the Main Menu) and the down arrow can be used to scroll through the results, saving mouse clicks or tabbing that were previously necessary.