How to create an Object

An Object is a kind of record your team defines: Repairs, Fabric trials, Press loans, the things your business tracks that Tideswell does not arrive knowing about. Admins create them in Settings › Objects. If the feature is new to you, read What is an Object? first.

Creating one takes a short dialog and two names. The work that matters happens either side of it: deciding what the Object is for, and adding the right fields afterwards.

Before you start

You need to be an admin, because Settings appears only for admins of the workspace. How to work out who can do what in your workspace explains how a person's role turns into what they can reach.

Read two pages first. How to choose between a built-in record and your own Object checks that what you are about to build does not already have a home in Tideswell. How to plan your fields before you add them gets your fields onto paper, which matters because a field's type is fixed once you save it.

Where do you create one?

Go to Settings › Objects. With no Objects yet, the page explains what one is and puts the New Object button in the middle of the screen.

Once you have at least one, the button sits at the top of the list. Each row shows the Object's icon, its plural name, and how many records and fields it holds.

The list shows only the Objects your team built. Tideswell's own, such as suppliers and purchase orders, are shaped elsewhere: their names on Settings › Terminology, and a supplier's extra fields on Settings › Custom fields.

What are the two names for?

The dialog asks for a Name and a Plural name. The Name is what one record is called. Type "Repair" and the button people press to add one reads New Repair, and the row in the Objects area of the menu reads Repair.

The Plural name titles the list page and the Object's row on Settings › Objects and Settings › Permissions. It also sets the list's first web address. The Plural name box appears once the Name has something in it.

Use the words your team already says out loud: Fairgreen Golf Co. uses "Repair" and "Repairs", "Fabric trial" and "Fabric trials", "Press loan" and "Press loans". Somebody opening the menu for the first time should know what is in the list without asking.

A few rules apply:

• Both names are required, so Create stays greyed out until each box has something in it.
• Each name can be up to 60 characters, far more than a good name needs.
• The Name must be one no other Object in the workspace is using. If it is taken, you are told "An Object called "Repair" already exists." and can change it there and then.
• Two Objects may share a Plural name. If the web address it produces is already spoken for, Tideswell adds a number to keep it unique, and the list still reads the words you typed.

Names can change later, and older links to the records keep working. See How to rename, reorder or retire an Object.

Create the Object

1. Open Settings › Objects and press New Object.
2. Type the Name, for example "Repair".
3. Type the Plural name in the box that appears, for example "Repairs".
4. Read the notes in the dialog, then press Create.

Cancel at any point throws away what you typed and creates nothing.

The first note says the Object gets a Name field added for you, and that you can point the record title at a more useful field once you have one. The second, in amber, says everyone in the workspace will be able to see Repairs and every field on them.

Pause on that one before you press Create. It shapes what you keep on this Object and what belongs somewhere more tightly held. You can change who sees it afterwards on Settings › Permissions, covered in How to set who can see and edit an Object.

What happens when you press Create?

You land on the new Object's Fields tab, ready to add fields. Its settings are six tabs: Configuration, Appearance, Fields, Statuses, Form and Templates. The same press also sets up four things people often only notice later:

• A row in the menu. The Objects area gains a Repair row for everyone whose role clears the Object's View permission. The area itself appears once a person can see at least one Object.
• A list of its own, titled Repairs, at a web address of its own. People who can create records see a New Repair button there, plus Import and History for bringing records in from a spreadsheet.
• Four permission rows on Settings › Permissions: Repairs · View, Repairs · Create, Repairs · Update and Repairs · Archive. View, Create and Update start open to every member. Archive starts at lead, so leads and admins have it. All four are yours to change.
• A form you can publish. The Form tab lets people outside the team send in a repair without signing in, covered in How to let people outside your team fill in a form.

New records are added from the Object's own list with New Repair, not from the Create new (+) menu. How to add and edit a record covers that, and How to import records from a spreadsheet covers bringing an existing sheet in.

What is the Name field?

Every new Object arrives with one field, called Name. It starts out as the field that titles each record wherever it is named: in search, in its breadcrumb, in a mention and on anything the record is linked to. Nothing else is added for you.

Fill Name with whatever identifies the record to a person at a glance. For Fairgreen's Repairs, that might be the customer's surname and the item together. For Fabric trials, the mill and the fabric: "Portside Mills, 240gsm piqué".

You can hand the title job to a better field, such as a reference number that counts up on its own. Do it before your team starts adding records, so every record is titled the same way. The Display field picker on the Fields tab does it, covered in How to rename, reorder or retire an Object.

What should you do next?

Add the fields you were certain about in your sketch, then use the Object for a week before adding the rest. Records are cheap to add and fields are easy to get wrong, so build less, then use it.

In roughly this order:

• Add your fields, deciding each one's type before you save it, because the type is fixed afterwards. See How to add a field and pick its type.
• Link the Object to the things it relates to, such as Repairs to your suppliers. See How to link one Object to another.
• Set the statuses a record moves through on the Statuses tab. See How to set up the stages a record moves through.
• Give it an icon and colour on the Appearance tab, so its row stands out in the menu. See How to rename, reorder or retire an Object.
• Check who can see and change it before you tell the team it exists. See How to set who can see and edit an Object.

Then hand it over. Your team takes it from there with How to add and edit a record.