How to find and open your records

Records live inside Objects, the kinds of record your team defines, and every Object your workspace has gets one list in the left sidebar. This page is how you get to that list, read it, and open the single record you came for. If the word Object is new to you, start at What is an Object?.

Before you start

You need View on the Object, as Working with records explains. Access is granted per Object, so being able to open Sample requests tells you nothing about whether you can open Fabric trials.

Where do your Objects live?

In the left sidebar, in the Objects group. Each row there is one Object your workspace defined, and clicking it opens that Object's full list of records. Fairgreen Golf Co.

sees Sample requests and Fabric trials. The things Tideswell ships with, such as suppliers, purchase orders and products, are not in this group: they have their own screens under Store.

The group tidies itself as it grows. Past four Objects it starts collapsed, and past eight it scrolls inside its own area instead of pushing everything else down the sidebar. Rows are filtered per person, so the list you see is exactly the list you have access to, and an Object you have no access to is left out rather than shown locked.

Old links keep working. If a teammate sends you an address saved before someone renamed Sample requests, it still lands on the right list. Renaming is covered in Rename, reorder or retire an Object.

What is the list actually showing you?

Six columns, taken from the first six fields in the order an admin arranged them, newest record at the top. Money, number, percent and calculated columns are right-aligned so the figures line up down the page. Everything else lives on the record itself, one click away.

Because the columns come straight from field order, changing what a list shows is a change to the Object rather than a setting each person keeps for themselves. If the wrong six things are on screen, an admin reorders the fields. For why the first six are worth thinking about before a list fills up, read Plan your fields before you add them.

One column can behave differently from the rest. A calculated column shows a figure worked out for you rather than one anybody typed, so on a record created moments ago it can read "Not calculated yet" for a short while. A field that works itself out explains what those are and how to read the freshness line on one.

For how money, percentages and dates are formatted in those columns, see How to read Tideswell's numbers and dates.

How do I open one record?

Click anywhere on its row. On the keyboard, move focus to the row and press Enter. Either way the record opens on its own page, with its reference number at the top, its fields below that, and its owner, stage, links and history underneath.

From there, if you hold Update on that Object, you can change anything on the record without switching into an edit mode first. That is covered in How to add and edit a record.

To go back to the list, use your browser's back button or click the Object again in the sidebar. The list reopens where it always does, at the newest record.

How do I get past the first fifty?

Press Load more at the foot of the list. It pulls in the next fifty rows underneath the ones already on screen, and you can press it again for the fifty after that. Nothing you have loaded disappears while you do it.

Loading more is the right move when you want to read down a list. It is the wrong move when you are hunting one record out of six hundred.

For that, use the Search box in the toolbar above the table, or the Filter button next to it, both of which are covered in How to search, filter and save a view. A filter also survives Load more, so you can narrow first and then page through what is left.

What do the empty screens mean?

Three messages, and they mean different things. The first says "No Sample requests yet.

Records you log here will show up in this list, searchable and filterable like every other Object." That is the ordinary starting state: the Object is set up and waiting for its first record. Press New Sample request and fill in the form.

The second tells you the Object has no fields yet, and offers a Go to Settings button. That one is a message for an admin: nothing can be logged until the Object has something to fill in. Giving an Object its fields is a job in Settings › Objects, covered in What is an Object?.

The third tells you that no Sample requests match these filters. The records exist, and your current filters are excluding all of them. Clear the filters and the list comes back.

Why can I not see an Object I know exists?

Because View is decided per Object and per person. An Object you cannot view is left out of your sidebar entirely, so the usual symptom is that a colleague describes a list you simply do not have.

If you open a link to one, you get a padlock page telling you that access is required and asking you to speak to an admin. That is the whole story: nothing is broken and no data is missing. Ask an admin to raise the View dial on that Object, which is Who can see and edit an Object.

The same idea explains a subtler case. You can open Sample requests but the New Sample request button is missing, or you can read a record but there is no Save.

The four dials are separate, so you can hold one without the others. How to work out who can do what in your workspace walks through how to work out which one you are short of before you ask.