Private and Visible Settings

What are private and visible settings?

Private and Visible settings control whether contact information appears in your organization's directories and reports. When you mark a field as Private, that information is hidden from the printed directory, the online directory, and users with limited directory permissions.

Which fields can be private?

You can set privacy for:

• Name
• Email address
• Personal phone numbers
• Household phone numbers
• Address

How to set privacy

When adding a new person

1. Go to People > Add a Contact.
2. At the top of the form, find the Visible / Private toggle.
3. Switch it to Private to hide all contact details by default (or keep it Visible to show them).
4. Click Save.

When editing a person's details

1. Go to the person's profile and click Edit.
2. Next to each contact field (Name, Email, Phone, Address), you'll see a Visible or Private indicator.
3. Click on the indicator to toggle it for that specific field.
4. Click Save.

Where privacy settings apply

• Printed directories: Only fields marked visible will print.
• Online directories: Users viewing the online directory will see only green-dot fields (if they have Online Directory permission and haven't been restricted by role permissions).
• Reports: Reports can still display private data, but users with "Limit view to directory settings only" permission will see only visible fields.
• Receipts and other documents: Private information is not automatically hidden from receipts or internal documents; it only affects directory display.

Check privacy status across your database

To see which contacts have private information set:

1. Go to Reports > Special Reports > Private Data.
2. This report lists all people with any field marked private, making it easy to audit privacy settings.

Setting the default for new contacts

By default, all new people are added with Visible settings. To change the default:

1. Go to Administration > System > People Settings.
2. Find Default Privacy Setting for New People.
3. Select Visible or Private.
4. Click Save.

All new people added after this change will inherit the new default (but you can still override it per person or field).

Can privacy settings restrict access?

No. Privacy settings only affect what appears in directories and reports. They do not prevent someone from receiving emails, seeing you in group membership, or accessing your record if they have the right role permissions. To actually restrict who can see or edit a person's record, configure role-based permissions and cluster restrictions instead.