How to add a field and pick its type

A field is one box of information on a record: a serial number, a fault description, the mill a fabric came from. Fields belong to an Object, a kind of record your team defines, and you add them one at a time on the Object's Fields tab in Settings › Objects. If Objects are new to you, read What is an Object? first.

Decide the label and the type before you press Save field, because both are fixed afterwards. That is why How to plan your fields before you add them is worth four minutes before you start.

Before you start

You need to be an admin, because Settings appears only for admins of the workspace.

You also need the Object itself. If it does not exist yet, follow How to create an Object first. A new Object starts with a single Name field, and everything else on it is something you add here.

To add a box to a supplier rather than to your own Object, use Settings › Custom fields and its Add custom field button instead, covered in How to add your own field to a supplier.

Add a field

1. Open Settings › Objects and click the Object, for example Repairs.
2. Open the Fields tab and press Add field.
3. Type a Label, up to 60 characters. This is what your team reads on the record, so use their words: "Serial number", "Fault reported", "Mill".
4. Open the Type menu, which reads "Choose a type…", and pick a type. Each row shows an icon, the type's name and a short line on what it holds.
5. Fill in anything that type asks for. An Options list wants its Options, and a Linked record wants to know what it Points at.
6. Tick Required if a record makes no sense without it.
7. Press Save field, or Cancel to discard it.

A message confirms it, for example Added "Serial number". The new field lands at the bottom of the list on the Fields tab.

Move it with the up and down arrows at the left of its row. The header on the Fields tab reminds you that the first six show as columns on the record list, in that order. How to rename, reorder or retire an Object covers the order in full.

What should you call a field?

Give each field a distinct label your team would say out loud. Avoid a field labelled "Status": every Object already has its own status control, so Tideswell refuses that label when you save.

Call it something like "Review status" or "Status note" instead. The statuses a record moves through are set on the Statuses tab, covered in How to set up the stages a record moves through.

Which type do you need?

There are seventeen types, grouped under four headings in the Type menu. Most choices are clear once you decide whether the value is typed freely, chosen from a list, or points at something else in Tideswell.

Basic

• Text: a short line, such as a name or a SKU.
• Long text: a paragraph, such as notes or a description.
• Checkbox: yes or no.
• Date: a single day.
• Date and time: a day and a time.
• Email: an address you can write to.
• Phone: a number you can call.
• Website: a web address you can open.

Numbers

• Number: a plain number, such as a quantity or a count of units.
• Money: an amount, shown with a currency.
• Percent: a share out of 100.

Choices & links

• Options list: pick one from a set list you write.
• Multi-select: pick any number from that same list.
• Linked record: points at a record on another Object, such as a supplier.
• Person: someone on your team.

Files & IDs

• File: files people upload to the record.
• Reference number: counts up on its own, so every record gets its own number.

Options lists, multi-selects and reference numbers each have a little more to them, covered in How to set up choice lists and reference numbers.

How do you choose between types that look alike?

Four pairs cause almost all of the regret. In each, the freer type accepts anything, which feels safer in the moment and leaves a list you cannot narrow six months later.

• Text or Options list. If the answer is one of a fixed set, we recommend Options list. "Warranty, Paid, Goodwill" as an options list can be filtered on. The same three words typed into a text box are just words.
• Text or Email, Phone and Website. Use the specific one. An Email is stored in lower case and checked for shape. A Website gets https:// added if you leave it off and opens in one click. A Phone number is kept as typed: a US number shows as (214)-555-0123, other numbers and extensions show as typed, and tapping one dials it.
• Number, Money or Percent. Money for anything with a currency, such as a repair charge. Percent for a share, such as a margin. Number for a count of things.
• Person or Linked record. Person is for a colleague in this workspace. Linked record is for a record on another Object: the supplier, the product, the purchase order. Setting that up, including what the other side calls these records, is in How to link one Object to another.

Can a field fill itself in?

Yes. If the value can be worked out rather than typed, tick Use a formula in the same dialog. The field then fills itself in from other fields, from linked records or from a date, and the Type menu narrows to what a calculation can produce.

Use a formula appears once the Object has something to calculate from: a Number, Money, Percent or Date field, a link to another Object, or a Linked record field. Until then, a line under the Type menu tells you what to add first. How to build a field that works itself out covers the rest.

Read the two warnings before you save

Two types show an amber warning the moment you pick them. Both describe something you cannot see from the field list afterwards.

Money: "Values here are replaced, not adjusted." When someone edits a Money field, the new amount takes the place of the old one. That is right for a repair charge, a quoted unit cost or a deposit.

It is wrong for a stock level or a running balance that something subtracts from. For a total that keeps itself current, build a calculated field instead.

File: "Everyone who can view this Object sees every field on it." An invoice or a supplier contract attached to a repair is readable by anyone who can open Repairs. If some of it should be seen by fewer people, set the Object's View permission before you attach anything sensitive. How to set who can see and edit an Object is the page for it.

Should you tick Required?

Tick it when a record genuinely makes no sense without the value, and decide while the Object is still empty. Required is set once, when you create the field, so make the call before there are records.

How it behaves:

• Required is checked when someone saves a record, and the message names the field, for example "Serial number is required."
• A Checkbox always has an answer, because unticked counts as no.
• The Required box is not offered for a Reference number, a File field or a field that uses a formula, because nobody types those values in.
• On an Object that already holds records, add new fields as optional. Tideswell refuses a required one there with "This Object already has records, so a new field cannot be required. Add it as an optional field instead."

Fairgreen Golf Co. added "Courier" to Repairs in month four. The four hundred repairs already logged had no courier to give it, so it went in as optional.

Which fields can you filter a list by?

Five types: Text, Money, Date, Options list and Linked record. If you will ever want to narrow a record list by something, make it one of those five, and type it in rather than calculating it: a field that uses a formula is never offered as a filter.

You make that decision here, when you pick the type. "Which repairs came from Kaimen Knitwear" is one click when the mill is a Linked record, and a scrolling exercise when it is a line of text.

Once your fields are in, add the first records with How to add and edit a record. Saving a narrowed list for your team is How to search, filter and save a view.