FTM2014 - Why are Research Notes Private ?

No one may have ever asked that question but while working on my current project, I have kept all of my research logged in the Research Notes. That, in and of itself, has been very helpful.

First, here is the Person Notes for Mary:

As I have shown earlier, I have been citing my note entries below the text of the Note item.

I also have been using the Fact Notes feature. You can see IF there are notes for a specific FACT with a number in the third column of numbers on the right end of the Fact in question. Clicking on the Note Tab on the right, you can see the notes for that fact.

Back to the Notes Tab for the person is the Research Notes ICON. I have been recording where I searched, or where I found the Facts for that person. It's not detailed, for the positive searches, as there would be Citations from that search. Negative search results would also be recorded here. (where, when, search criteria, etc). Some times I will add a ToDo / Task if I want to return to that source at a later time.

I had been changing the default setting of "private" (the Lock ICON to the right of the Research Notes ICON) to not private.

The Research Notes is the 2nd ICON under the Person Notes. The 3rd ICON is, by default, marked as Private where the ICON is orange.

I was wondering why that was. 

What I normally do, when I make a change, is to check the output of any change I might make. In this case I didn't do that until now.

I went to the Publish Workspace, Person Tab, and Notes.

I may have mentioned earlier that it is helpful to read the report description on the right.

I selected only the Person Notes to be displayed in this report. In this case I ran the report for everyone.

Now to see the Fact Notes:

I selected Fact Notes on the Right. In this case, the Person Notes was still active. That can be turned on or off.

What about the Research Notes?

Here is where that feature becomes important. At first, when I selected Research Notes, none appeared. Selecting Private Notes, the Research Notes appeared.

I do have Private Fact Notes as well.

But, what about the Person, Individual Report?

From the Publish Workspace Person Report and selecting the Individual Report, and selecting the Items to Include ICON will bring up the default settings or the settings you have saved for that report. In this case only the Person Notes.

The report looks like this.

From the Items to Include ICON we make our choices. I select Fact, Research, and Private Notes. I added the Sources.

Each type of note is marked.

And the Sources are at the bottom of the report.

Bottom Line for me, is that I have complete control over what notes are seen in a report on the Output side. I can see the Private Fact Notes, and Private Research Notes on the input. Now I understand why the Default setting for Research Notes are Private. When running reports I have not wanted all of those Private Notes. I just want to see the Person Notes.

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Copyright © 2013 by H R Worthington