---
title: Working with records
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/records
description: A record is one entry of an Object. This section is the day to day of working with them.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# Working with records



A **record** is one entry of an **Object**, and an Object is a kind of record your team
defines. You get to records by clicking an Object in the **Objects** group of the left
sidebar, not through Settings. Each row in that group opens one list, and each line in that
list is one record you can open, fill in and hand on.

Fairgreen Golf Co. defined two Objects of its own. **Sample requests** holds one record
per sample asked of a factory.

**Fabric trials** holds one record per fabric a mill sends in for testing, so the wool
Portside Mills sent in March is a single fabric trial. The examples on every page in this
section use those two.

<Ref to="objects" /> is the setting-up half of the feature, the part an admin does once in
**Settings › Objects**. This is the other half, the one everybody does every week. You do not need to
have built anything to use these pages: if an Object is already in your sidebar, everything
here applies to it.

## Why keep this in Tideswell rather than a spreadsheet? [#why-keep-this-in-tideswell-rather-than-a-spreadsheet]

Because a row in a spreadsheet is on its own, and a record is not. A record can point at the
supplier it came from and the task somebody is doing about it, carry the person accountable
for it, show which stage it has reached, and keep the conversation and the history of every
change on the record itself.

That is the difference you feel on a Tuesday morning. Fairgreen used to answer "where did
that trial get to" by asking the one person with the sheet open. Now the answer is on the
record, and it is the same answer for everyone looking at it.

## What do you actually do with records? [#what-do-you-actually-do-with-records]

Five things, and each one has a page below. You log a new record, find the handful that
matter this week, narrow a long list down to a question worth asking, show where a record
has got to and who owns it, and tie it to the work around it.

* **Log one and change it.** The form is built from that Object's own fields, so it looks
  different for Sample requests than for Fabric trials. Records are edited in place, so
  there is no edit mode to remember to leave. See <Ref to="records/add-and-edit-a-record" />.
* **Find one.** Every Object has a single list, and almost every job starts there. See
  <Ref to="records/find-your-records" />.
* **Ask the list a question.** Once it runs to hundreds of rows you stop reading it and
  start narrowing it: which sample requests are still open, which fabric trials came from
  one mill. A narrowed list can be named, kept and shared. See
  <Ref to="records/filter-and-save-a-view" />.
* **Show where it has got to.** A record carries a stage, such as Requested, With factory,
  Received, and an owner, the person or team accountable for it. Both take a couple of
  clicks, and both are what make a list readable at a glance. See
  <Ref to="records/stages-and-owner" />.
* **Connect it.** A record is rarely the whole story: the sample request has a task against
  it, the fabric trial has a spec document, and both point at a supplier. See
  <Ref to="records/link-a-record" />.

## When is a task the better home? [#when-is-a-task-the-better-home]

Use a task instead when what you are describing is a piece of work with a person and a date
on it, as in "Priya chases Portside Mills by Friday". Tasks have assignees, due dates,
priorities and a board built around them. A record is the thing that work is about, so most
of the time you want both, joined together.

Two more everyday choices. When you want to ask a question or note a judgement rather than
change a value, leave a comment on the record, which is
<Ref to="records/comments-and-history" />. And when the thing you want does not exist as an
Object at all yet, that is a build rather than a day-to-day job, so start at
<Ref to="objects" />.

## What do you need to be able to do this? [#what-do-you-need-to-be-able-to-do-this]

Access is granted per Object, so being able to open Sample requests tells you nothing about
whether you can open Fabric trials. Each Object carries four dials: View, Create, Update and
Archive. Holding one does not give you the others, which is why you can sometimes read a
record and find no Save button.

Anything you cannot view is left out of your sidebar entirely rather than shown locked,
which is why a colleague's link sometimes opens a padlock rather than a list.
<Ref to="concepts/who-can-do-what" /> walks you through working out which dial you are short
of, and an admin raises it in <Ref to="objects/permissions" />. Every page in this section
says which of the four it needs and points back here rather than repeating it.

## Where to start [#where-to-start]

Read <Ref to="records/find-your-records" /> first, because the list is where everything else
begins. Then <Ref to="records/add-and-edit-a-record" /> for logging and changing them.

After that the pages stand alone and you can take them as you need them: filtering and
saving a view, stages and owners, links, then comments and history.