How Do I Use Custom Fields?

Custom fields are available in many Web Suite screens, such as Employee, Project, Activity, Client, Vendor, Budget, etc. You can customize their labels, data type, size or length of characters and type of user interface according to your needs. A custom field can support any data type. For example, Text for alphabets and letters, Numeric for numerals and digits, Date for dates and Currency for an amount with a currency sign. Similarly, you can specify the size or length of characters for a ‘Text’ data field. You can choose any type of UI for the custom field. For example, a text box, a date drop-down, an auto-fill drop-down list or a custom list drop-down.

Using these custom fields, you can track extra characteristics and attributes of master records. For example, track employee (or vendor) skills and experience to match your company’s needs. You might want to use a custom field in the Employee screen to store the date the employee received his professional license. For that, you can change its interface to a calendar drop-down. You might want to have a time entry custom field be used when a service is provided out of state. For that, you can create a custom list called ‘US State’ and make it a drop-down list.

Custom fields are available in the Web Suite Enterprise edition only.

To use custom fields:

1. Open Custom Labels screen from the Settings menu.
2. From the Customizable Labels list, select a screen whose custom field you want to customize, say Employee.
3. Click  on the tree list to open a branch.
4. Select Custom 1 and then type Certificate in the Label field.
5. Select Text for Data Type and 50 for Size (characters long).
6. Next, choose an appropriate UI Type for this new field. For example, if you select Text as the Data Type, you can choose Text Box as the UI type for it.
7. When you have finished, click Close.

To confirm the changes:

1. Open Employee screen from the Lists menu.
2. Click the ID of any employee record from the grid to view its details.
3. On the General tab, the field label now reads ‘Certificate’ instead of Custom 1. If you customized Custom 3, Custom 4 or Custom 5, see the Detail tab.
4. Select an employee on the grid for whom you want to add customized information.
5. Define and enter a shorthand code or short phrases into the customized field. Each custom field accepts up to 50 characters. For example, in the Certificate field, you can add ‘Acct’ to show the employee earned an undergraduate accounting degree. ‘MAcct’ indicates a master’s, ‘EE’ (electrical engineering), ‘CS’ (computer science), ‘MBA’ and so on.
6. When you have finished, click Save and then Close.