Make a purpose the default, or delete one

Three things are decided on the list rather than inside the editor: which purpose an employee gets without choosing, how to copy one that is nearly right, and what happens to visits that are already booked when the purpose they were made under goes away.

1. Open the purpose’s panel

Selecting a row on Visiting purpose opens a panel with the actions on it. The row already carries a Default badge where one applies, so you can see which purpose is the pre-selected one without opening anything.

2. Make it the default

Set as default makes this the purpose pre-selected on every invitation and every walk-in. It appears only on a purpose that is not already the default, so the action is missing from exactly one row.

The default is a fallback, not a restriction: an employee inviting somebody can still pick any other purpose. What it decides is what happens when nobody chooses — which is most of the time.

3. Duplicate one instead of starting over

Duplicate copies every setting into a new purpose. It is the fastest way to make a strict variant of a permissive one — copy Meeting, then raise the fields the stricter visit needs. The copy gets its own name and no Access ID, so a spreadsheet import cannot address it until you give it one.

4. Delete a purpose, and move the visits it still has

The default purpose cannot be deleted at all — Cannot delete default — so promote another one first if you want it gone.

Deleting a purpose that still has visits ahead of it does not just delete it. A dialog opens naming how many are affected — Move n upcoming visits to — with another purpose already chosen, the default one where it can be. Accept it and those visits carry on under the new purpose.

Delete without moving is still offered, and the dialog says plainly what it costs: “Those n visits can’t check in or be edited.” That is the whole reason the dialog exists, so read the count before choosing it.

Only visits that have not finished and are not cancelled are counted. Past visits are never moved — they keep the purpose they were made under, so the record of what somebody visited for stays true.

Deleting a purpose with nothing upcoming is a plain confirmation and no move. The same dialog appears whether the delete is started from the detail panel or from the toolbar with several purposes ticked. It arrived in 4.5.12; before that, upcoming visits were left stranded.

5. Check it worked

Open an invitation and look at the purpose it offers before you touch it: that is the default. Then open the purpose you deleted from — the visits you moved should now be listed under the purpose you moved them to, with their dates unchanged.