How Can I Track Project Changes?
Changes are a reality of running projects. And tracking those changes is critical for getting a full understanding of the...
Your projects, and project management needs, are unique. weCloud Coach is highly customizable and allows you to create new fields on the project, phase, task, and ticket levels. These custom fields allow you to capture data specific to your business needs.
The Cloud Coach custom fields are based on the types of custom fields in Salesforce, including text, number, percent, and pick list. When you create the field, you can also determine who can see and edit the field.
Custom fields behave like standard fields – they can be reported on, history tracked, and set as required if necessary. You can even add new relationship fields to link objects together such as Account and Ticket. Custom fields can be added to page layouts; create related lists from relationships and more.
Creating Custom Fields
There are several different types of fields you can select when creating your custom field. Finding the right field for the kind of data you’re collecting is very important.
Auto-number: Auto-number is often used when you want to assign an ID to a record, outside of it’s Salesforce record ID. You can use this when referencing projects or tickets to external parties, or on invoices. You can easily search for and report on these record numbers.
Checkbox: A checkbox allows you to assign a true or false attribute to a record. When the box is checked the value is true; unchecked the value is false.
Currency: The currency field allows you to enter a currency amount. The system will automatically format the field as the selected currency for the organization, so users do not have to enter currency symbols.
Date: Using a date field will allow the user to either type in a date, or select a date from a pop-up calendar. Date fields allow you to group by week, month, quarter, and year when reporting. (There is also date/time field that will allow you to enter a time as well as a date. This field is useful when setting deadlines and entering call or meeting times.
Formula: Formula fields automatically calculate values based on other fields on the object. For example, you could use a formula to determine how many days are left to complete a project based on the end date, and today’s date.
Lookup Relationship: A lookup relationship and a master detail relationship give you a method to link multiple records together.
Number: A number field allows you to enter a number. This is a real number – any leading zeros will be removed. Numbers entered into number fields can be referenced in formula fields.
Pick List: A pick list is a drop down list on your record that allows you to select only one value. One example of a pick list would be when selecting a project contract status.
Multi-Select Pick List: A multi-select pick list is similar to a standard pick list that users can only select from pre-populated values. However, a multi-select pick list allows the user to select multiple values – like multiple types of communication they are interested in.
Text Entry: There are three different kinds of text entry fields: text area, text area long, and text area rich.
- Text Area: Allows up to 255 characters, displayed as one line of text.
- Text Area Long: Allows up to 131,000 characters. The text can be displayed as paragraphs of text, and provides a large box to type in.
- Text Area Rich: Displays a formatting toolbar in the text box for basic formatting, like bold, italics, underline, numbered lists, bulleted lists, hyperlinks, and images. Only the first 254 characters of the rich and long text areas will be included in reports.
Creating A New Cloud Coach Field
Now that you have a better understanding of the field types, it’s time to create a new field to use with your Cloud Coach projects. In this example, we’re going to create a new field on the project object called Division.
First, navigate to the custom project object, and select “Create New Field.” You’ll need to choose what type of field you want to create. In this case, we want to limit the choices the user can enter, so that it’s easy for the user to understand and the data is consistent. Consistent data, particularly in text fields, is important if you’re going to build a report from those fields. We’re going to create a pick list, since a user can only choose one division for the project.
Next, you’ll enter your field label. This label will appear on page layouts, reports, and list views. We’ll call our field ‘Division.’ The field name will be automatically populated with the same name as you entered in the field label. The field name is the internal reference names.
Since we chose to create a pick list, we need to enter the values that the user can select from. Each new value must be separated by a line break. Our options are North America, APAC, and Europe.
It can be helpful to enter a description of the field to reference later – especially if it’s not clear when the field is used. You can also enter help text to help your users complete the field accurately. Help text appears when a user hovers over the field. In our example, the help text reads “The division is the office where the services will be billed.”
The next step is to set your field level security. You can choose both the visibility and the read-only access for that field. If no boxes are checked, the user with that profile cannot see the field. If you only check the box for visible, then the user can view and edit the field. By checking the box for “read-only,” then those users can view the field but not edit it. (When you check the box for read only, the box for visible is automatically checked for you.)
The final step is adding the field to page layouts. Check the box for the page layout for which this field should be available. When you click save, you’ve created your first custom field!
You can now edit your page layout and move the field into the most appropriate location on the page. Once you publish that page layout, your users can enter information into the field, and you can report on it.
Whether you are looking for project management, or professional services automation tools on the Salesforce platform, Cloud Coach has the tools for you. Request a demo today and learn how you can more quickly and efficiently manage your business, leveraging the Salesforce platform.
AUTHOR
Brandi Johnson
Related Articles
Where can I see all the project details for a client?
In this week’s two-minute video, the Cloud Coach team explores the Project related list and answers the question, “Where can...
Nic Widhalm
Apr 21 2017 5 min readCan I get a Portfolio View of my Projects?
This week the Cloud Coach team discusses launching the Cross-Project Gantt view from a related list, and answers the question,...
