Creating Custom Fields

GoldMine's flexibility meets a range of business information needs. The ability to create user-defined custom fields goes beyond the variety of options in GoldMine and better tailors the contact record to meet your company's needs.

Plan custom field implementation by considering the following:

■ What is the field-type: numeric, alpha, or both?

■ What type of data will the field contain?

■ Will the field calculate?

NOTE: When adding user-defined fields, create a custom screen (see Custom Screen Profile Dialog Box) to display the related fields. Always back up your databases before creating user-defined fields.

TIP: Create telephone number fields that format numbers like other phone fields. Create a field named UPHONEn, where n is a user-defined number.

To Create a Custom Field

1.

Select Tools > Configure > Custom Fields.

2.

At the User Defined Fields dialog box, select New.

The User Defined Field Profile dialog box opens.

3.

Type a unique name, beginning with U, in the Field Name field (it can be up to nine alphanumeric characters in length, including the U).

The field name should not contain spaces or special characters, such as asterisks (*), an underscore(_) immediately following the U, or percent signs (%).

NOTE: The Field Name appears when inserting fields into Microsoft Word; therefore, make the field name user-friendly and identifiable.

WARNING: User-defined field names must not use an underscore (_) immediately following the U (example: U_fieldname). Fields named in this way will not synchronize and will result in data loss. This will also prevent the field from being inserted into a Word or Excel template. Do not use any of the following SQL reserved words as field names: UNION, UNIQUE, UNPIVOT, UPDATE, UPDATETEXT, USE, USER.

4.

In the Description field, type the field label to appear in the contact record. Field labels must not include an apostrophe/single quote (‘) or double quote (“) within the label.

5.

At the Field Type options select one of the following:

○ Character. Formats data as a text string.

○ Numeric. Formats data as numbers to run mathematical functions against.

○ Date. Formats data as a date, month/day/year.

6.

In the Len field, type or select a field data length.

The maximum length for a character field is 256; numeric is 16.

7.

The Dec field is available when creating a numeric field.

It sets the number of decimal places within the field. GoldMine assigns one character place to the decimal point in determining field length. For example, create a field that can accept hold values up to 9.99 by assigning a Len value of 4 and a Dec value of 2. This field applies to numeric data types.

8.

Click OK.

The User Defined Fields dialog box reopens with your new field added to the list. Next, add the field to your custom screen (see Adding Fields to Screens).

After fields are created, GoldMine will prompt you (the Master user) to rebuild the database for the fields to be physically placed in the Contact2 table. You must restart the web server in order for the fields to be propagated to GoldMine Web. Otherwise you will be unable to view or access the contact record.

IMPORTANT: Not restarting the web server after adding a new field could introduce inconsistent data in database due to conflicts between GoldMine Premium Edition, and GoldMine Web when multiple users are updating information.

Review help topics regarding maintaining your SQL database. See the support site for information on rebuilding.