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Overview
User-definable fields (UDFs) can be created for Clients, Employees, Vendors, Projects, Project Level2 and Contacts. UDFs are used to create important information that you would like to collect and associate with one of the previously listed applets.
A UDFs Designer allows you to create UDFs that will be used in the Clients, Employees, Vendors, Projects, Project Level2 and Contacts applets. You can access the UDFs Designer in 2 places:
1) A dedicated applet located at Administration>UDFs Designer.
2) On the toolbar in the Clients, Employees, Vendors, Projects and Contacts applets, there is a toolbar button labeled UDFs Designer. When you click on the UDFs Designer in the specific applet, the focus of the designer will be on the UDF for that specific location.
To see a list of the UDFs that have been created, go to the respective applets and click on the "Custom Fields" Tab. The label of the "Custom Fields" Tab can be changed at Administration>Global Settings>UDF Tabs. UDFs can also be used in conjunction with the Layout Manager to incorporated them into the main tabs of the applets.
Note: Project Level2 UDFs are accessed by right-clicking on the WBS node of the project and selecting "Sub Level UDFs". There you can Create, Edit and Enter data into them. Project Level2 UDFs are not available on the Custom Tabs nor are they available in the Layout Manager.
Field Descriptions
The following fields are located on the UDFs pop-up.
| • | Label - This is the field label that will appear on the form next to the field. |
| • | Name - This is the name of the field as it will appear in the associated UDF table in the database. Names cannot include punctuation marks (including spaces). |
| • | Data Type - Type of data that is expected: Character, Integer, Numeric, Boolean (True/False), Date, Date Time (includes both date and time), Long Text, Bill Status, Client, Employee, Expense Code, G/L Base Code, Labor Code, Org Unit, Project and Vendor. |
| o | Note: Bill Status, Client, Employee, Expense Code, G/L Base Code, Labor Code, Org Unit, Project and Vendors all give you selections from the respective areas when selected. For example, if you use a Data Type of Employee, the UDF will be a look-up containing the list of Employees. |
| • | Default - Default value for new records (optional). |
| • | Min - Minimum allowed value (optional). |
| • | Max - Maximum allowed value (optional). |
| • | List - UDF List to use for quick entry. UDF Lists must be created before you create a UDF. To see UDF lists, look at the top of the UDF pop-up. You will see a tab labeled UDF Lists. |
| • | Validation Script - A field has been added to the UDFs called Validation Script. The purpose of this field is to validate the value entered into the UDF field via SQL script. The script can use two variables: |
^udfvalue^ (the value being validated) and ^keyid^ (the primary key of the record holding the udf)
| o | The SQL script must return at least three values: |
| ▪ | reterr (>=0 equals no error, <0 equals error) |
| ▪ | retmsg (the error message if reterr <0) |
| ▪ | retvalue (this can either be the same as the value passed in or it can be a new value. In either case, whatever is returned will be the value in the UDF field. |
| • | Display Format - Display Format controls the output format of the UDF. Here is a list of a few built in formats that can format data. Just put the number and the brackets (ex. {1} ) in the column and hit save. The result will show the ID. |
| o | Date, Currency and Numeric formats are supported. |
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