Create a User-Defined Field (UDF)

Home | FAQs & Troubleshooting

                      

Expand/Collapse all Show/Hide All

Expand/Collapse item  Overview

You can create any number of user-defined fields (UDFs) for a given entity; however, the total number of characters for all UDFs cannot exceed 20,000. When a new UDF is created or a change is made to an existing UDF, the ODBC Dictionary file and other system files are updated automatically to reflect the changes.

The UDFs defined for a table are defined for all companies; different sets of UDFs cannot be created for each company. You can, however, use the Customizer module to create panels containing different UDFs for each company. The field name, control type, and other attributes that determine the type of information to store in the field can be specified for each UDF.

Note Panels in the Customer Relationship Management module cannot be customized, and UDFs cannot be created for Customer Relationship Management tables.

 

Use one of the following methods to create a UDF:

 

To create a UDF for modules other than Material Requirements Planning and Work Order

  1. Select Custom Office Main menu > User-Defined Field and Table Maintenance.

  2. Select the table to add the UDF to.

  3. In the User-Defined Fields window, click Add.

  4. In the Add Field window, enter the field name and description. For more information, see Add Field - Fields.

  5. To copy the UDF definition and data from another field, select Business Object and select the data source and column. To enter all UDF data manually, select Manual Entry.

  6. Click OK. A second Add/Edit Field window appears.

Note  If the field properties are based on a business object selected in Add Field, [Sourced] appears next to the field, and the field properties cannot be changed.

  1. In the second Add/Edit Field window, change the description if desired. Select a control type. For more information, see Add Field/Edit Field - Fields.

  2. Click the Attributes tab, and enter the UDF attributes.

  3. Click the Validation tab, and enter the data validation types. To validate the UDF against an existing user-defined table (UDT) whose key field length is the same as that of the UDF, select User-Defined Table. Click OK.

  4. The next step is to update the data dictionary and UDF data files. You can either do this now or save your changes to the pending file and update them later.

    To update your changes now:

    1. In the User-Defined Fields window, click OK.

    2. When you're prompted to update the ODBC data dictionary and UDF data files, click OK.

    To keep your changes in the pending table:

    1. In the User-Defined Fields window, click Cancel. A message lets you know that your changes have been saved to the pending work table.

    2. Click Close to close the message window.

    3. When you're ready to update the changes, in User-Defined Field and Table Maintenance, click the Summary of Pending Changes button.

    4. In the Pending Changes Summary window, click Update All. The changes are updated to the data dictionary and UDF data files.

      Note If there are pending changes for more than one table, a message appears after each table is updated letting you know how many tables are yet to be updated. You can either click Continue to continue the update process or click Stop to update the remaining tables at a later time. If there is no response to the message after 30 seconds, the update process automatically continues.

After you have created the UDF, you can add it to a panel or a Crystal report. For more information, see Add a User-Defined Field (UDF) to a Panel.

 

To create a UDF for Material Requirements Planning and Work Order modules

  1. Select Custom Office Main menu > User-Defined Field and Table Maintenance.

  2. Select the module and table you are adding the UDF to. Click the Edit Fields button at the top of the User-Defined Field and Table Maintenance window.

  3. In the User-Defined Fields window, click Add.

  4. In the Add Field window, type the field name and description. Select a control type. For more information, see Add Field - Fields.

  5. Click the Attributes tab, and enter the UDF attributes.

  6. Click the Validation tab, and enter the data validation types. Click OK.

  7. The next step is to update the data dictionary and UDF data files. You can either do this now or save your changes to the pending file and update them later.

    To update your changes now:

    1. In the User-Defined Fields window, click OK.

    2. When you are prompted to update the ODBC data dictionary and UDF data files, click OK.

    To keep your changes in the pending table:

    1. In the User-Defined Fields window, click Cancel. A message lets you know that your changes have been saved to the pending work table.

    2. Click Close to close the message window.

    3. When you're ready to update the changes, in User-Defined Field and Table Maintenance, click the Summary of Pending Changes button.

    4. When you're ready to update the changes, in User-Defined Field and Table Maintenance, click the Summary of Pending Changes button.

      Note If there are pending changes for more than one table, a message appears after each table is updated letting you know how many tables are yet to be updated. You can either click Continue to continue the update process or click Stop to update the remaining tables at a later time. If there is no response to the message after 30 seconds, the update process automatically continues.

After you have created the UDF, you can add it to a panel or a Crystal report. For more information, see Add a User-Defined Field (UDF) to a Panel.

When a change is made to a UDF, the ODBC Dictionary file and other system files are updated automatically to reflect the changes. If a UDF is deleted, all existing UDF data files for the entity are updated to remove the data field. The update process is performed for all UDF files for all defined companies.