User-Defined Fields in Customization Projects: General Information
By using the MYOB Acumatica Customization Platform, you can add boxes for fields that were already defined in the database of the MYOB Acumatica instance (see Configuring the Layout of Forms for details). If you need to add elements to a form that do not exist in an out-of-the-box system, you have the ability to create user-defined fields. You can then transfer these user-defined fields to another instance by adding them to your customization project.
Learning Objectives
In this chapter, you will learn how to do the following:
- Define an attribute for a user-defined field
- Add the user-defined field to a form
- Add the user-defined field to a customization project
Applicable Scenarios
You add user-defined fields to a customization project if you have made the following changes in your MYOB Acumatica instance and you want to replicate these changes in another instance:
- You have added to a form at least one element that does not exist in an out-of-the-box system.
- Because of the user-defined fields you have added, the company has been able to gather additional information about records, and it wants to gather this information in other instances as well.
User-Defined Fields and Attributes
A user-defined field is based on an attribute: a property (such as age or industry) that you define in MYOB Acumatica so that users can specify additional information for particular entities in the system. Attributes may carry information about such factors as product brand, manufacturer, lead age, gender, or industry. For details, see Attributes.
For some entities, attributes can be assigned to an entity class and displayed on the Attributes tab of the corresponding data entry form. However, the functionality of using the Attributes tab is not available for all entities. In the latter case, attributes can be added as boxes to an additional tab (the User-Defined Fields tab) of a data entry form. See User-Defined Fields for a list of the forms that support user-defined fields.
On any form for which user-defined fields have been added, the elements in the Summary area of the form are displayed on the Document tab, while the added user-defined fields are displayed on the User-Defined Fields tab.
Settings of User-Defined Fields
When you want to add user-defined field to a data entry form, you use the command on the form title bar. Invoking this command opens the Edit User-Defined Fields (CS205020) form for this data entry form.
On the User-Defined Fields tab of the Edit User-Defined Fields form, you select the user-defined fields that you need to add to the data entry form. On the Properties tab, you can make these user-defined fields required by selecting the Required check box or hidden on the form by selecting the Hidden check box. You can also specify the default value for a user-defined field, and specify the types of documents or entities on the original form to which the settings on the Properties tab should be applied.
User-Defined Fields in a Customization Project
The user-defined fields that you have added to your instance initially exist in only this instance. If you need to have the same fields in another instance, you perform the following general actions:
- In the source instance, you add the user-defined fields to a customization project by using the User-Defined Fields page.
- In the source instance, you export this customization project.
- In the target instance, you import the customization project.
- In the target instance, you publish the customization project.
For details on how to export and import projects, see Project Publication: General Information.