Also referred to as "User-defined fields", Synergist allows creation of fields on various types of records to suit the specific requirements of your Synergist use-cases. The record types in Synergist which can be modified to carry one or more custom fields are:
- Organization (client or prospect)
- Contact
- Supplier
- Supplier contact
- Job header
- Job phase
- Stage
- Project
- Campaign
- Sales invoice
- Task
There is no limit to the number of custom fields that can be attached to records.
In order to create a custom field you must give it a description - this is the label that will appear in the user interface next to the field, and a data type. The main data types are:
- Text - this is text limited to a cerain number of characters (255), carriage returns not allowed. Will appear as a simple input box, note that it will not expand to display all text entered. No data will be lost up to 255 characters but a report or layout including custom field data would be required to see the entire contents. Best suited to short strings.
- Text area - the better choice for saving and displaying a lot of text, appears as a larger input box, which can be resized as required. No realistic limit on the amount of text that can be entered.
- Logical - yes / no. Will appear as a toggle control.
- Date - will appear with a date picker
- Time - will appear with a time picker
- URL - a specil text field with a button to check the syntax is allowed as a URL. Correctly entered URLs will display as clickable links.
- Number - will only accept real or integer values, no text.
- Users-All - a drop-down list of all active users in your user list
- Users-Handler - a drop-down list of all users set as handlers in your user list
To create a custom field go to File Maintenance > Client & CRM > Lookups & Custom Fields. The initial list will contain several entries, all with a field ID of 0. These are standard fields that use the same mechanisms for storing data as "true" custom fields. You cannot remove these but you can hide them from view and change certain attributes, like the options in a drop-down list.
Click new and enter the label you want to see in the user interface.
Details
Select the type of record the custom field will be associated with. You cannot use a single custom field on more than one record type.
Set the data type.
You can save & close at this point and the new field will appear on all records of the type selected. Logical records will default to "no", all other custom fields will be blank until populated.
The remaining fields on the details tab control where the custom field appears, the order custom fields appear in, and if you have a lot of custom fields you can choose to group them under headings simply by typing in the same heading against multiple custom fields. All these are optional.
Notes can be populated with a paragraph of text. This text will appear as a mouse over tooltip on this field.
Settings
If the data type for you custom field is Text (not Text area) you can choose to set up a validated list of entries, rather than allow free entry of test. This is useful if you wish to select records based on values in the custom field as it ensure data consistency.
Dependency
You can make the appearance of custom fields dependent on values in other, standard fields. You can also control whether or not a field is mandatory based on the same dependency:
In this example the custom field is attached to the Activities table. It will always be shown, but will only be mandatory on Activities of the type Email and Phone call.
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In this example the same Activites custom field will not be displayed on activites of the type Email or Phone call, and it is not mandatory. If you make the field globally mandatory this check is bypassed when the dependent selection is matched - the custom field is hidden, so cannot be mandatory.
Display options
The display options control what should happen when a custom field that has been populated previously is now set to be hidden. For example if you have a Job Header field set to be hidden when the client type on the job is "Client" (ie only displayed on prospects), these display option control what happens when the organisation on the job becomes a client:
When the dependent selection is matched:
Normal means that if data is present in the custom field it will continue to be displayed and can be changed freely. If the field is blank it will be hidden
Keep hidden status if data exists means that regardless of the custom field being blank or holding data, it will be hidden.
Display only means that if the custom field holds data, it will be dispayed but cannot be changed. If it is blank the field is hidden.
Note that the "Hide when dependent selection matched" option is reversed to "Show when dependent selection matched" if the main "Hidden" option is checked. By using these two controls you can have a custom field only appear if the dependent selection is matched, or have a custom field only be hidden if the dependent selection is matched. This allows white list / black list style functionality to be applied to the dependent selection.
"Blacklist" - field is hidden ONLY if dependent selection is matched
"Whitelist" - field is hidden UNLESS dependent selection is matched
Format
This field is not currently used by the user interface and is retained only for use during initial data import into custom fields
Lookups
This is the tab you use to set up the values available in a drop down custom field. You can allow users to add values to a list without needing to access file maintenance if you tick the All new option described above. You can set the order they appear in the list, and make entries inactive. If you remove an entry from the list this will not have any impact on records where that value has been used previously, the data will continue to display normally.
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