Introduction
Our amazing engineers and product team have been hard at work with revamping how custom fields work. Now custom fields support data validation and you can use them in reporting, integrations, and more!
Start the video at 16:28
Do you have special information that is needed to provide context around a project or task? Custom fields can help slice reports by any segment, help recipes speak the language of any system, and simplify navigation with shortcuts in custom columns.
User Access by Role
Admins and Managers can create, edit, and populate custom fields
Guides can populate custom fields
Task Owners can utilize already created custom fields at the task level
ALL users can view and benefit from custom fields
Overview
What can you do with the new custom fields:
Purpose of Custom Fields
Custom Fields have long been popular at the project level, but as of early 2024 they can also store even more granular values at the task level. For example, if you need to remember the point of contact's cell phone number, you can save that in a custom field. With new enhancements you will be able to use custom fields in reports, recipes, and more!
How to Create Custom Field Labels
Navigate to the triple dot icon in the top left and choose the “Custom Fields” management section.
Click the “+Add Custom Field” button in the top-right to create a new custom field label.
Choose the data type from the first drop down. (Note: this can not be changed or migrated later)
Choose the object type of project or task from the “Apply Custom Field To” menu. We will eventually expand this to other objects like customers and users. Let us know what your preferences and use cases are for expanded custom field objects in our roadmap portal.
*Optional* set the “Placeholder” with any gray background helper text you want to appear in the field before population to provide context around the meaning of the field.
---> Team members will see the placeholder text you set when populating a custom field in the Custom Fields project tab, or in the task drawer.
Select “Internal Only” if the field contains sensitive information that customers shouldn't see. If this is left unselected, values will be visible to customers and can be used in Merge Tags when instructions and messages are dynamically personalized with values from these public fields.
Set Validation Rules for Custom Field Values
Finish custom field configuration by optionally setting the final few validation rules by setting a default value, min/max length, or requirement to populate a custom field value during creation of a project or task.
One of the most powerful ways to force validated entries in custom field values is to use the single-select drop down data type. When that is chosen, the drop down menu values are set in the bottom right corner of the field creation pane.
Populating Project Level Custom Fields
The easiest way to populate your project level custom fields in the Custom Fields tab of the project. In-line edit - work is auto-saved!
Or, populate project level custom fields in the table on the "Projects" page. Ensure the custom fields you're wanting to populate are displayed on the project table, then edit in-line.
Populating Task Level Custom Fields
Users can populate task level custom fields in the task drawer.
Add Custom Field Values to the Global Projects Page
You can customize your project table view. To display custom fields as columns, click the "Columns" button and toggle on fields you want to display.
Customer View
Even though free customer accounts cannot edit custom field values, they can still view and interact with custom fields if you want to point them to specific links or contact information. This is done in the “Custom Fields” tab in an individual project’s page or in the task details drawer.
If there are custom fields you don't want visible to customers, mark them as "Internal Only".
API + Connector for Integrators to Automate Recipes
The API has been expanded to include these new custom field granularities and properties. These updates are backwards compatible with the former endpoints so any previously built recipes will continue to operate without extra updates.
Just make sure to update to the latest version of the connector in Recipe Builder to take advantage of the new data types, object types, and validation parameters.
Dataset for Analysts to Customize in Report Builder
Providers who have purchased the Report Builder add-on will also have access to new datasets for Project Custom Fields and Task Custom Fields.
Then they can easily combine those custom fields with any of the other datasets to segment and filter any GUIDEcx data based on those values.