In our last installment, Design Mode Crash Course Part 2, we created a custom page in the Prospect Management Functional area. After creating our custom page we moved the custom tab we created in Part 1 to that page. Now that we have and know how to create our own pages and tabs, let’s put it all together and create our own functional area!

There are several reasons we may want to do this. For example, if we have another idea for a page, but it doesn’t make sense on any existing functional areas, or an internal team specifically asks for an entirely new functional area to meet a business need.

Creating a new functional area is easier than it sounds in Blackbaud CRM™. The steps listed below will outline how to create a new functional area, populate it with the page we created from Design Mode Crash Course Part 2 and the additional tab from part 1.

Step one: Navigate to the Administration Functional area and click on Application then Shell Design

Step two: Once in the Shell design, confirm you are in the Functional Areas sub navigation pane

Step three: From the Functional Area tab, click on Add. Enter a Name, Description, and optionally select an Image and Small Image. Then click save.

Step four: Before your new functional area will appear in CRM we need to assign a task to it. In the sub-navigation pane, click tasks.

Step five: Once on that Task page, click on the Add button. Once again Enter a Name and Description. We’ll also need to select the functional area we just created and add a page. We can add the page we created in part two of this series. Once those options have been selected click save.

You’ll now see a link to your functional area in the top navigation pane. Go ahead and click on the link to your new functional area! On your new functional area you can add additional custom pages using the steps we learned from Part 2 and add additional tabs to your pages using the steps from Part 1.

Now you're on your way to custom parts and pages.