Custom Field

A "Custom Field" is a field that the district defines that is seen in the different interfaces when creating, editing, or querying a record.  Custom fields are also available under the MORE option in order to add the field to your custom grid.  They are also available as a 'property' which can be included in reports. 

Create Custom Field

1. From the System menu select 'Custom Field Definition'

2. Click on

3. Select the 'Type' of custom field from the drop down.  The 'Type' defines the format of the field. Refer to the 'MORE' section at the end of this chapter for more details about the various Type formats.

4. Select the record that this custom field will apply to from the 'Applies To Record' drop down

5. Click on

6. Enter in following information:

• • Display Name: field name you want displayed on the interface
  • Order: order number you want it to appear within the group.  For example, if you want the custom field to be displayed at the beginning of the 1099 section in vendors, enter '1'. 
  • Property Name: name for report properties
  • Group: section of the interface you want the custom field displayed

 7. Click on to save the custom field to the system, click on to not save the custom field and return to the Custom Field Grid.

After, you can view the newly created custom field on the user interface.  For example, if I created a boolean field to indicate the W9 is on file, I would see the following in the Vendor interface as the first field on the 1099 section.

Search Custom Field

The  custom field grid allows the user to search for existing custom fields on the system by clicking in the filter row in the grid columns and entering in the desired information. Click on any row of the search results to see a summary view of the record. Click on beside a custom fieldt to see the full details.  The Advanced Search can be utilized by clicking on the in the upper right side of the grid.

Note: To filter the grid result by the Applies To property you have to surround your search criteria with wildcards (%).  So to limit the grid to all custom fields that apply to vendors, you enter %vendor% in the filter box.  This does a 'starts with' query, so you can enter all or part of the word vendor, but you need to surround it with %. 

Click on  in the grid beside the custom field to edit the custom field. Only fields that are allowed to be edited will be displayed.

Inactivate Custom Field

You may set a Custom Field to inactive if you wish to stop using it.  The Custom Field may be reactivated at a later time if desired by checking its active box.

• From the System menu select 'Custom Field Definition"
• Search for and select desired custom field
• Click on the beside the custom field and uncheck the active box
• Click on  to save the changes, (the custom field will no longer appear in the 'applies to' interface), click  to remove the changes and leave the record as it was.

Delete Custom Field

Click on the   in the grid beside the desired custom field.  A confirmation box will appear and you will be asked to confirm that you really do want to delete this custom field.

More Information

Each Custom Field has a Display Name and a Property Name.  The Display Name is what appears as the field label when viewing, creating, or editing a record.  The Property Name is intended to be a shorter abbreviation of the field which is used other places in the software where the field may be selected, such as in the advanced query and report properties selection boxes.

A Custom Field may be a code, date, money, text, web address, email address, user or a Boolean (true/false) field, as defined by the "type" selected when the Custom Field is created.  Each Custom Field applies to a single type of data, for example, Vendor.   A Custom Field which has an "applies to" of Vendor will only appear in the Vendor interface and when generating Vendor reports.

Some of the types have unique restrictions or capabilities:

• Boolean: displays a checkbox for the custom field allowing you to 'click' on it to select it.  It will typically be represented as true or false, or as a checkbox which may be checked (true) or unchecked (false) 
• Code: The user is presented with a dropdown list allowing them to select from the list of valid codes.  The list of valid codes are entered during the code's custom field creation.
• CreateDateTime: read-only; automatically updated to the system date when creating new record. 
• CreatedUser: read-only; automatically updated with the username of the user who created the new record
• Date: must be in proper date format (mm/dd/yyyy)
• DateTime: read-only; automatically updated to the system date and time when creating the new record
• Email: must be in a valid email address format
• LastModifiedDateTime: read-only; automatically updated to the system date and time when the record was last modified
• LastModified User; read-only; automatically updated with the username of the user who last modified the record
• Money; automatically formats in number format.  Will not accept dollar signs or commas.
• Number: enter a mininum and maximum number range.  Figure entered in this field must be within the range defined when the custom field was created.
• Text: custom text field
• User: allows selecting a valid username from a dropdown list
• WebAddress: must be in a valid web address format  http:// or https:// is required at the beginning

• Custom Field Video