Plan your fields before you add them

A field is one box of information on a record, and every field belongs to an Object: a kind of record your team defines, built by an admin in Settings › Objects. If that is new, read What is an Object? first.

This page is the four minute sketch worth doing before you open the builder. Almost everything you set up can be changed later, but a small number of choices are fixed once the field is saved, and those are the ones people get wrong in the first ten minutes.

Which decisions are fixed once you save?

Three: a field's label, its type, and, for a linked field, which Object it points at. Once the field is saved, those are set. Correcting one means archiving the field and adding a replacement alongside it, which leaves the old values where they are.

Everything else you can change whenever you like: the order of your fields, which field titles every record, the choices in an options list, the stages, and the permission dials. That is why the field type is worth two minutes of thought rather than twenty seconds.

What should I write down first?

Work backwards from the questions you want to answer, not forwards from the data you happen to have. Take repairs at Fairgreen Golf Co.

The questions are "how many repairs are open right now", "which supplier sends us the most", and "how long do they take". That tells you the record needs a stage, a link to the supplier, and a date.

It also tells you that the customer's phone number, which nobody will ever group by, can be a plain text field and does not need thinking about at all.

Write down, for each thing you want on the record:

• What it is called, in the words your team already uses
• Whether it is one value or many
• Whether you will ever want to filter or group by it
• Whether it points at something else in Tideswell

Those last two are what decide the type.

Which type do I actually need?

The trap is picking Text because it accepts anything. It does, and six months later you want to narrow the list by it. Work through these five before you settle on Text:

• If it is one of a fixed set of answers, use Options list. "Warranty, Paid, Goodwill" as an options list can be filtered and grouped, where the same three words typed into a text box are just words. Setting one up is Choice lists and reference numbers.
• If it points at a supplier, a customer or another record you already keep, use Linked record. Typing the supplier's name gives you a value that will be spelled three ways by March. See Link one Object to another.
• If Tideswell can work the value out from other fields, such as a total or a turnaround time, let it: see A field that works itself out.
• If it is money, use Money, and read the note that appears when you pick it. Each edit sets the amount to whatever is typed, so it suits a figure you restate, such as the cost of a repair.
• If it is a date you will sort or count by, use Date.

Filtering a record list works on Text, Money, Date, Options list and Linked record fields, so anything you expect to narrow a list by is best as one of those five. Add a field and pick the right type walks all seventeen types and what each one is for.

Should I tick Required?

We recommend ticking it only if a record genuinely makes no sense without the value, and if you are confident about that now. Required has to hold for every record already saved, so the honest moment to decide is before any records exist.

Leave it clear for anything a person might reasonably not know at the moment they create the record. A repair might not have a resolution date on day one.

How many fields should I start with?

Fewer than you think, and in the order you want them read. The first six fields become the columns on the record list, and everyone who opens that list sees the same six, so those six are a real decision about what the list is for rather than just a starting order. You can reorder them later: see Rename, reorder or retire an Object.

Add the fields you are certain about, use the Object for a week, then add the rest once you know what is missing. Fields are easy to add. They are not easy to unpick.

Before you go on

Once you have your sketch, create the Object first and add the fields to it second. Take it in that order: Create an Object is the build itself, then add each field and choose its type. Both steps need an admin, and How to work out who can do what in your workspace explains how a person's role turns into what they can see and change.