Who is this article for?

Ideagen Quality Management administrators managing the system.

Custom fields administration access is required.

Custom Fields are Ideagen Quality Management-specific fields that can be used in Workflows, attached to Documents, or included as environment variables. These fields are basically blank spaces for data related to whatever objects you attach them to, and allow for better searching and reporting on those items.

Using the Custom Fields Administration page, you can create and edit these fields from a single location, though they're used in many other places throughout your system. An unlimited number of fields—of eight different types—can be created. 

This article outlines:

1. How to Add/Edit a Custom Field
2. How Remove a Custom Field
3. Date/Time Fields
4. Document Fields
5. External File Fields
6. Folder Fields
7. List Fields
8. Personnel Fields
9. Standard Fields
10. Subform Fields
11. Text Fields

Note: Once created, custom fields are added to Documents by adding them to the parent folders' folder properties - custom fields tab and then filling them out on the individual Document's Document properties - custom fields tab. See the Custom Fields for further details. Custom fields are added to Workflows through the Workflow definition.

1. How to Add/Edit a Custom Field

1. Select Administration > Custom Fields. From here you can:

• • • Add - by filling out the associated fields, you can add a new custom field from the Add Field box at the bottom of the page.
    • View/Edit - by expanding the Field Type node and clicking the field, its properties open to the right.

2. To create a new custom field, fill out the following fields and click Add.

• • • Title - the name of the field as it appears in the field list and on any Workflow, folder/Document properties page, or environment variable it's added to.
    • Description - brief summary of the field. This is useful to distinguish several similarly named fields.
    • Field Type -the type of field. See below for further descriptions on each.

2. How Remove a Custom Field

1. Before a custom field can be deleted, it must be removed from every place it's being used. To find where a field is used, select the field from the list and, next to Usage, select Show. A list of folders, Workflows, and user profiles where the field may be used opens.

• • • Folder Fields - means the field is used in the folder properties of the field listed to the left of the parentheses.
    • Personnel Custom Fields - means the field is added to the Administration > Personnel Custom Fields page to be displayed with user profiles.
    • Workflow definition Title ({Step name where it's used}) - the format for fields used in Workflows.

2. Manually go to each location and remove the field.
3. After completing step 2 for each location, return to the properties for the custom field and click Remove.

3. Date/Time Fields

Fields of this type appear as a calendar menu with a corresponding text field, allowing users to enter a date manually.

You can use this field type to control expiration of a Workflow.

Tip! To add date ranges in your Workflows or Documents, you must use two separate custom fields. We recommend naming these fields similarly.

4. Document Fields

Document fields allow users to browse to and attach any Document stored in the Ideagen Quality Management Documents Tree.

Allow for more than one Document to be attached by enabling the Multi-Select box in the field properties.

When a Document is selected, users can access the specific revision that was originally selected (the view link), the current published revision, or the newest revision in process prior to publication. All of which are still restricted to all users based on the Document's security.

5. External File Fields

Similar to Document fields, external file fields allow users to attach files located outside the Documents Tree and your Ideagen Quality Management system.

Though these files receive a unique ID#, they are not searchable (other than by ID#) and do not become part of the tree structure.

Allow for more than one Document to be attached by enabling the Multi-Select box in the field properties.

6. Folder Fields

Folder fields allow users to select folders from the Documents Tree. If you want the user to only select from folders that you specify (rather than any folder in the Documents Tree), then under the Restrict Selections to the Following Locations heading, enable the appropriate folder(s) that the user may select from.

Allow users to select more than one folder by enabling the Multi-Select box in the field properties.

7. List Fields

List fields allow users to select from multiple custom values, which can be as simple as Yes/No or as complex as a dynamically-updated list pulled from an active database or Excel file.

In addition to the custom values added for users to choose from the list, all List fields also include the following options:

• Multi-Select - whether the field allows for more than one value to be selected.
• Source - values for the field can come from one of three sources: custom list values, personnel members of a given group, or an external source outside the Ideagen Quality Management system. Each source is further explained below.

Tip! When making these selections, users can hold Shift and click on a range of values, or hold CTRL and click several unconnected values.

Custom List Values

This type of list field allows you to create custom values to populate the list with. There is no limit to the number of values you can add, though remember users will have to scroll the page if too many are added.

1. From the Source options, select Custom List Values.

2. Insert value data into the blank fields below the list as needed and click Add.

• • • ID - unique identifier for this field. This is automatically added by Ideagen Quality Management, and allows the system to update the field wherever it's being used even if its value and display name change.
    • Display - where a more user-friendly display name can be shown to the user than what's actually used as the Value. The Value and Display should match in all cases except limited external source value scenarios.
    • Order - manually change the order the values appear in the list by changing the numbering here.
    • Enabled - change this from True to False to remove this value from the list the user sees.
    • Remove - enable this and click Save Changes to delete a value from the list.

3. Select Save Changes.

Populate List Values

This type of list field allows users to select values from the members added to a given group in Ideagen Quality Management. See Groups to alter a group's membership.

1. Select Populate list values with members of a group from the Source options.
2. Select Save Changes to refresh the page.

3. Select the group used in this field from the group drop-down menu.
4. Select Save Changes.

Note: For any user added to the Ideagen Quality Management system to be an option, select the All Users group.

8. Personnel Fields

Personnel list fields allow users to select individual members from a specific group, and are often used to designate responsible parties for subsequent steps in Workflows.

This type of list field also includes the following options:

• Show Groups Only - when enabled, users can only select groups as values. When disabled, individual users also appear in the list.
• Group Restriction - allows you to populate the list with members of a specific group rather than all Ideagen Quality Management users. Select All Users if you want every user included as an option.

9. Standard Fields

Standards custom fields allow users to select from any of the Standards you've added to the Ideagen Quality Management system. Since Document properties already includes this feature for controlled Documents, these fields are primarily used in Workflows to show compliance.

10. Subform Fields

Subform fields let you group any other custom fields, of any type, together in a table format. Each field forms a single column, and users can add and remove rows as needed when filling out data down the columns.

1. Select the field to add to the subform table from the drop-down menu.
2. Give it a column heading display title and click Add. fields appear in the table above in the order you add them.
3. To change the order they display from left to right, change the Order numbering.
4. Click Save Changes.

The Subform appears as shown below when the end-user sees it:

Notes:

• Since a custom field can only be added to a subform once, create additional fields to repeat data in multiple columns (like the "Temp" fields above).
• Added fields are displayed one over another in the administration page (as shown above), but to the end user they appear left to right (as shown below).
• Remember you can show or hide specific columns per step of a Workflow, allowing for more data to be gathered without sharing it with the wrong users.
• When users access a Workflow Instance that contains a Subform on the first step, they must Save Changes to open the Add Row button.

11. Text Fields

These fields allow users to provide free-text information. There is no limit to the number of characters allowed in a given field.

This type of list field also includes the following options:

• Multi-Line - whether the text can be displayed on multiple lines.
• Display Size - the pixel length the field occupies. This setting allows you to determine how large a text field appears on the page allowing you to better scale the display to reflect the types of fields you've added.
• Percentage - if enabled, this field scales the length of the text box to fit a percentage of the page, rather than using a hard pixel number.
• Field Format - determines how the data entered must be formatted or the types of characters the user is allowed to enter.
  • • Numeric-Decimal - allows only numeric and special characters like periods and dashes to be entered.
    • Email Address - requires the user enter data in a correct email address format.
    • Free Text - places no restrictions on the type of data and characters entered.
    • HTML - requires data be entered in an HTML format, with necessary tags and syntax.
    • Numeric - allows only numeric characters and some special characters like dashes. Periods are not allowed.
    • Web Link - requires data be entered in valid URL format.
    • Min/Max Value - the range for allowed numeric characters.
    • Default Text - any text you'd like to appear in the field for the user to see. This data can include instructions and may be overwritten.