How to add your own field to a supplier

Settings › Custom fields is where an admin adds boxes of their own to Tideswell's suppliers. Every business records something about its suppliers that no product ships a box for.

Add it here once, and a Custom fields section appears on every supplier's page in Buying › Suppliers for your team to fill in. See What is workspace admin? for the rest of Settings.

Fairgreen Golf Co. adds a "Freight minimum" and a "Last factory audit" date, so Priya Raman can see both on Portside Mills' page next to its terms.

Your workspace may use its own word for this; Settings › Terminology shows both.

Before you start

Settings sits at the foot of the menu for admins of the workspace, and this is one of its rows. Adding and removing fields needs the Define Objects row in Settings › Permissions, which admins have by default. See How to set who can do what.

Filling the boxes in on a supplier's page needs the Edit suppliers row instead.

How do you add a field?

Open Settings › Custom fields, click Suppliers, then press Add custom field. The row for Suppliers reads "None yet" until you add one, then counts them, such as "2 of your own".

1. Open Settings › Custom fields and click Suppliers.
2. Press Add custom field.
3. Type a Label, up to 60 characters. This is the name your team reads on the supplier's page.
4. Open the Type menu and pick what the box holds. The types are listed below.
5. For an Options list or a Multi-select, type the choices in Options, separated by commas.
6. Leave Required unticked, because the suppliers you already have hold no value for a new field yet.
7. Press Save field, or Cancel to discard it.

The new field joins the list on the same page, with its Field name and Type.

Decide the label and the type before you press Save field, because both are fixed once it is saved. Give each field a name the supplier page does not already use, so nobody mistakes one box for another.

Which types can you choose?

Pick the type that matches what your team will type in.

• Text and Long text: a short answer, or a few lines such as a note on packing rules.
• Number, Money and Percent: a minimum order quantity, a freight minimum, a co-op percentage.
• Date and Date and time: a factory audit, a contract renewal.
• Checkbox: a yes or no, such as "Signed code of conduct".
• Options list and Multi-select: one choice, or several, from a list you write, such as the certifications a mill holds.
• Website, Email and Phone: a web address, an email address or a phone number, such as the mill's order desk.

Choosing Money shows the note "Values here are replaced, not adjusted." Use it for a figure somebody types in, such as a minimum, rather than a balance that goes down as you spend it.

Where do the values get filled in?

On each supplier's page, in Buying › Suppliers. Once your workspace has at least one field, a Custom fields section appears below the supplier's terms, with a box for each field and a Save button.

Anyone with the Edit suppliers row can fill the boxes in and save. Everyone else who can open the supplier sees the values without the boxes to change them. How to add and set up a supplier covers the rest of a supplier's page.

The fields are seen by everyone in your workspace who can open suppliers, and by nobody outside it.

How do you remove a field?

Press Remove on the field's row in Settings › Custom fields › Suppliers. Tideswell asks you to confirm, because what your team typed into it stops showing on every supplier.

Make sure nobody still needs those values before you remove a field. Copy anything worth keeping into the supplier's notes first.

How is this different from a field on an Object?

A field here adds a box to a supplier, which Tideswell ships. A field on an Object belongs to a kind of record your team defined itself, such as Repairs, and is added on that Object's Fields tab instead.

How to choose between a built-in record and your own Object helps you decide which you need, and How to add a field and pick its type covers fields on your own Objects.