How to add and edit a record

A record is one entry of an Object, the kind of record your team defines and an admin builds in Settings › Objects. Adding one takes a button and a short form; changing one takes a click on the field itself, with no edit mode to switch into and back out of.

This page covers both, plus the fields that fill themselves in and the files you hang off a record afterwards. For what Objects are and where they come from, see What is an Object?.

Before you start

You need Create to add a record and Update to change one, as Working with records explains. If you can open a list but the New button is missing, or you can read a record but there is no Save, that is what you are short of.

Add a record

The form you fill in is built from that Object's own fields, so it looks different for Sample requests than it does for Fabric trials.

Open the Object from the Objects group in the sidebar. If you are not sure which list you want, see How to find and open your records.
Press the button at the top right, which is named after the Object's singular name: New Sample request.
Fill in the fields. Required ones are marked, and the form tells you before it saves if one is empty.
Press Save. Tideswell creates the record and drops you straight onto its page.

Fill the form in one sitting. If you are waiting on a detail somebody else has, save what you do know and add the rest on the record page. That takes seconds, and it keeps the record in the list where your team can see it.

Fix a form that will not save

Read the message under the field. Two things stop a save: a required field left empty, and a value in the wrong shape. The second is the one that surprises people, and the wording tells you what is wanted, for example "Enter a number, like 12." on a number or money field.

A linked field is worth a special mention. Picking a mill on a fabric trial searches the mills that already exist, so if the mill is genuinely new, create it first and come back. The field itself, and what an admin sets up behind it, is covered in Link one Object to another.

Person fields work the same way and offer the people currently in your workspace. An Options list field offers exactly the choices an admin defined for it, which is what Choice lists and reference numbers is about.

Edit a record in place

Open the record, click into the field you want, change it, and press Save. A short "Saved" confirmation appears and the new value is live for everyone immediately. You never switch a page into edit mode, and you never lose your place.

You can change several fields before pressing Save, and they go in together as one change. That matters for the history: one save is recorded as one entry, listing each field with what it was before and what it is now.

So it is worth saving once when you have finished a thought, rather than after each keystroke. See How to comment on a record and see its history for how to read that back.

Two things on the record page save on their own, without a Save press: the stage it is at and the person or team who owns it. Both are covered in How to move a record through its stages and set an owner.

Which fields fill themselves in?

Two kinds, and neither one accepts typing. The reference number printed at the top of the record, such as SMP-1042, is assigned the moment you save and stays with that record for good. It is the thing to quote in an email or a chat message when you mean one specific sample request.

Calculated fields sit in their own block below the fields you type. They hold figures worked out from the rest of the record or from records related to it, such as the total cost of a trial or how many samples a factory has open. Each one carries a line saying how recently it was worked out, so you can tell a fresh number from one due a refresh.

On a record you created moments ago it can read "Not calculated yet" for a short while. A field that works itself out covers how they are set up and how to read one that shows a message instead of a figure.

For how currency, percentages and dates are shown across all of this, see How to read Tideswell's numbers and dates.

Attach photos and documents

Save the record first, then attach. Files live in their own sections at the foot of the record page, one section per file field an admin created, so a fabric trial might have Swatch photos and Lab report as two separate sections.

Drag files onto the dashed area, or click it to browse. The area tells you the size allowance as you go: up to 25 MB each, and ten files in one go. For more than ten, drop a second batch.
Once a section has files in it, use its Add button for the rest.
Uploads show their progress, and a confirmation tells you how many landed.
Click an attached file to download it. Images preview in place.
Remove a file with the control on its row.

Attachments are private to your workspace. Each download runs through a fresh link that expires, so a copied address is not a way around access.

What do you see when you can only view?

Everything, laid out exactly as it is for everyone else, just not editable. Dates, money, yes and no, links, email addresses, phone numbers and choices from a list all render in their finished form rather than as inputs, and the Save button is simply not there.

You can still read the whole record, open its links, download its files and follow the conversation on it. If you need to change something, ask an admin to raise the Update dial on that Object, or leave a comment on the record and mention whoever holds it. The connections between a record and the rest of your work are covered in How to link a record to work, and see what points at it.