Custom Fields
AdaptiveWork’s Custom Fields feature is a powerful tool that allows you to define any type of custom field within any class including; textual, pick list, dates, currencies, numeric, time effort, reference to other objects and more. Each field type can be set to be manually entered by the user or based on a simple or advanced formula allowing you to build appropriate connection between fields, KPIs and more. .
Once configured, these custom fields can be accessed via the custom tab within the class profile card, or by creating custom column views.
Note: Custom Fields count towards your Configuration quotas, depending on which type of account you have. Learn more.
Creating New Custom Fields
To create a new custom field first select the entity on which you would like to create the custom field and then click on the "New Custom Field" link
Entry Mode
Custom fields of any type can either be manually entered by the user or updated automatically using a formula.
The formula may be based either on the field's object itself or on a summary of related objects .
To create a custom field that is filled in by a formula check off the "Field value is based on a formula" check box
To learn more about creating formulas click here .
Field Properties
The "Field Properties" section of the new custom field window has required and option sections, as described below.
Field Label
When creating a custom field you must enter the field name.
The field name does not need to be a unique name, and is the name that is displayed to users within the appropriate entity.
API Name
The API name will be automatically assigned to the field once the Field Name is entered.
The API name of each field must be unique, meaning that no two fields (custom or standard) can have the same API name.
API names are used when creating formulas .
Description
The description is an optional field that is displayed only within the Custom Field tab of the Customizations page.
This field is used to describe to other users what the custom field is used for.
Tooltip
The Tooltip is an optional field that is displayed to users within the application when they mouse-over on any given field.
The tooltip can be used to describe to users what the requirements are for the custom field.
Read Only
The "Read Only" checkbox allows you to create a custom field that cannot be manually entered by the end user, but rather is updated by the API (meaning externally updated, or updated via Workflow rules.
To make a field "Read Only", select the "This field is updated only through the API" checkbox.
Note: The "Read Only" checkbox is not displayed if you select the Formula option within the field type section.
Financial
Note: The "Financial" option is only available:
- for fields created on Work Item Entities
- if system setting 9.1 “Enable budget management“ is enabled
This checkbox enables you to create custom fields that are only visible to users with financial permission within the system.
To create Work Item related custom fields that are only visible to financial users, select the "This field can be viewed and updated only by financial user" checkbox.
Default Value
A default value can be entered for all Field Types except for the Text Area field type.
Default values can be set by by a formula by selecting the "Based on a formula" check box.
The default value for picklist fields can be chosen within the picklist values list.
Note: the default value option is only available for custom fields that are not formula based
Referenced Entity
The "Referenced Entity" drop down is available when the Reference To Object field type is chosen.
This is a required field, where you need to select what object you will be referencing.
An example of how to work with the Referenced Entity can be viewed here. While the example refers to the Data object, reversed references can be used with other objects as well.
Decimal Places
When selecting either the Numeric field type, Currency field type or Percent field type the decimal places field is available.
By default the number of decimal places for the field value is set to zero, but can be changed for each individual field.
Rollup Summary
When selecting either the Numeric, Currency, Percent, Date, or Duration field types on Work Items, the Rollup Summary check box is available.
The Rollup Summary check box allows users to rollup a field value from a child work item into the parent.
When selecting to set a field as a "Rollup" you will then need to select the rollup type, which can be either Maximum, Minimum, Average or Sum.
This will determine the value within the field in the parent work items.
For example, if selecting a numeric field with the "Sum" rollup type, the parent field will display the sum total of the values of its children's field.
You also have the ability to add an evaluation criteria for the rollup of the field.
Note: the Rollup Summary option is only available when creating custom fields on the "Work Item" entity
Relation Summary Fields
The purpose of this capability is to allow saving calculations on objects that are related to a certain object (summary of related objects data).
Relation summary fields are available for all entity types and field types, and include the following summary options:
- Max
- Min
- Average
- Sum
- Count
- Custom
Where custom allows the end user to use formulas on related objects.
Selecting the Relation Field
After selecting the summary type, you must then choose the relation field or entity, depending on how you plan on summarizing the data.
For Sum, Max, Min and Average summary types, you are required to select the field on the related object to summarize.
To do so click on the "Select relation field" link and first select the related object, for example, Issues,
and then the field on Issues that you are looking to summarize into this custom field.
How do I access the Related Objects Fields?
Clicking on this link displays the TargetObject and the LinkObject, where the Target Object is the object that is directly related to the current object,while the Link object refers to the link between the target are current object.
To access both the TargetObject and LinkObject fields and variable click on the variables tab in the Formula Helper.
Using the Target and Link Objects allows you to filter through summarized data.
For example, you may want to not include Issues that are in State "closed" for a counter looking at all related issues.
Use Cases
Relations summary fields may come in handy in many use cases, for example:
- Within a validation rule that prevents closing a work item that has one or more unclosed issues
- Visibility of summary of all work item's effort into a corresponding issue
- In a workflow rule that alerts a project manager if the averaged actual effort of the work items of his project is
greater than the average estimated effort of the work items.
To implement a custom field that is calculated by a formula that is based on related object, follow the steps below:
- In section 1 (Field type)
- Check the "field's value based on formula" check box
- Choose "relation summary" in the drop down
- In section 3 (Set formula)
- Choose the summary type (sum, count, etc.)
- Choose the related objects' fields to calculate the field value by
- Optionally, filter the the related objectusing a formula by checking the 'filter related objects' check box
- In case the summary type is 'custom', choose the summary formula
Custom Tab Layout
The "Custom Tab Layout" link is available for all entity types that have a profile card.
Use this link to set up the layout of the "Custom" tab within the profile card by editing the position of the available custom fields within the tab.
Customizable Standard Fields
Several standard fields can be customized with values and images.
To edit the field click on the "Edit" link located to the left-hand side of the appropriate field
Here are some examples of standard fields that are customizable for each Entity Type:
- Document
- Document Type
- Work Item
- Commit Level
- Importance
- Pending
- Phase
- Project
- Business Impact
- Project Size
- Project Type
- Risks Impact
- Risks Rate
- Milestone
- Type
- Task
- Type
- Expense
- Expense Category
- All Issue Types
- Business Impact
- State
- Risk
- Risk Strategy
- Request
- Request Type
- Risks Impact
Deleted Fields
Custom fields that are deleted are stored in the "Deleted Fields" for a period of 45 days and are then automatically deleted.
To restore a field from within the "Deleted Fields" click on the "Restore" link to the left of the appropriate field.
To fully delete a field click on the "Delete" link to the left of the appropriate field.
Custom fields that are placed into the "Deleted Fields" tab count towards the total number of deleted fields allowed, until they are fully deleted.
Custom Action Best Practices
Formula fields will only be calculated when an object is changed and only when the fields in the formula are dependent on change.
- Formula fields and workflow rules generally run at the same speed.
- Ideally, the required columns are loaded before execution.
- If an entity was modified concurrently (in a different transaction), a job is triggered.
- Formula evaluation criteria needs to be as simple as possible based on the evaluation criteria rules.
Rollup fields are slower than formula fields or workflow rules but they are calculated inside the project calculation process (i.e. in memory), so their overhead is still small. If you have many of those then you will slow down any update to the project.
It’s very hard or impossible to implement rollups via workflow rules.
The Formula and Rollup criteria needs to be as simple as possible based on the evaluation criteria rules.
Relation Summary fields are the slowest type of custom field. They run as a groupable job (outside of the Save transaction).
WIP - Online execution optimization
A Workflow rule might be more efficient in some cases.
For example, if you are implementing Count by referencing additions and deletions of links and just incrementing or decrementing the counter.
