Every person or organization in CoolFocus lives in one shared record type, a Contact. Involvement flags tell CoolFocus, and your team, how that Contact is involved with your organization: Client, Donor, Volunteer, and Staff are the most common. In CoolFocus 3 these were the Is Client, Is Donor, and Is Volunteer boxes.
Why involvement flags exist
CoolFocus does not force you to create a separate "Client" record and a separate "Donor" record for the same person. Instead, one Contact can carry multiple involvement flags at once. Someone can be both a client you serve and a donor who gives back, without duplicate records to keep in sync.
Involvement flags drive:
Which record views and grid columns show up for that Contact (a Client sees intake/case fields; a Volunteer sees availability and positions).
Which segments and reports the Contact appears in. A "Donors" segment only includes Contacts with the Donor flag set, for example.
Which links resolve correctly elsewhere in the product (for example, dashboard task links route to the correct module, Clients, Connect, or Give, based on a Contact's involvement flags).
Where to see and set them
Open a Contact's record, click Details, and look at the General Info tab. Involvement is shown as a set of boxes (Clients, Donors, Volunteers, Staff, and any module-specific ones your organization has enabled). Turning one on adds those fields and views to the record; turning it off hides them but does not delete any history already recorded.
Not the same as Roles or User Groups
Roles are your own labels for how someone takes part (Board Member, Mentor, Office Volunteer), with start and end dates. They're right below the involvement boxes, in Details → General Info → Roles. In CoolFocus 3 they were on the Lists tab. See Roles on Clients, Donors, and Volunteers.
User Groups control what your staff can see and do when they sign in, in Settings → Security → User Groups. Involvement flags never give anyone access.
Common questions
Can a Contact have more than one involvement flag? Yes. This is the normal case for many organizations (a volunteer who is also a donor, a client who becomes a volunteer, and so on).
A Contact isn't showing up in a segment or report I expected. Check that the relevant involvement flag is actually turned on for that Contact. Segments and reports for Clients, Donors, or Volunteers only include Contacts with that flag set.
A record link from a dashboard task or activity feed goes to the wrong place. This usually means the Contact's involvement flags don't match where the link is trying to send you. Confirm the correct flag is set on the Contact record.
How do I see everyone with a certain client role? On the Clients list, add a filter on Roles, choose Filter by roles fields..., pick Role Type, choose is, and select the role. Save it as a segment to open it again any time. See Filtering by Related Records and Saving & Sharing Segments.