User Defined Fields

User Defined Fields (UDFs) allow an Admin to add fields to a large number of the forms available in PCR-360 if there are fields that are desired that PCR does not already provide. To access UDFs, navigate to Admin > User Defined Fields > User Defined Fields to open the User Defined Fields grid as seen below.

Adding UDFs

To add a new User Defined Field (UDF), click the  button. This opens the 'Add New User Defined Field' form.

On this form, there are four Required fields:

• UDF Identifier - This is the Identifier that PCR-360 uses for the UDF being defined. This label MUST be unique or it cannot be saved.

  • This field is set to read-only and cannot be changed once the User clicks the  button. 

• Label - This is the label for the defined UDF.

• Field Type - This determines the type of input associated with the UDF.

  • This field is set to read-only and cannot be changed once the User clicks the button. 

  • There are a number of different Types that can be selected. See the Type Definitions section for complete descriptions of the types.

• Required - Requires that the UDF has data before the form can be saved.

• Verify Field Data - Creates a blue tool-tip for the UDF when the User attempts to Save the record, This helps to encourage the User to verify the record is valid.

UDF Associations

Once a UDF has been defined, add associations to the sections of PCR-360 where the UDF should appear. These associations allow a single UDF to be associated with multiple sections of the application for greater ease of management.

To add a UDF Association, follow these steps:

1. Click the  button. 

2. The 'Add New Field Association' form opens.
   

   

3. The input here is kept relatively simple. Select an Item from the 'Association Table' drop-down.

4. Some inputs open additional drop-downs. Those additional drop-downs are listed here:

   • Cables - UDF applies to all Cables.

     • Cable Type - UDF ONLY applies to selected Cable Type.

   • Contacts - UDF applies to all Contacts

   • GLA - UDF applies to all GLAs.

     • Format - UDF ONLY applies to selected GLA Format.

   • Location - UDF applies to all Locations.

     • Location Type - UDF ONLY applies to selected Location Type.

   • Service Desk - UDF applies to all Service Desk items.

     • SD Type - UDF ONLY applies to the selected SD Type.

   • Service Desk Actions - UDF applies to all Service Desk Actions

     • SD Action type (not SD Type)

     • Service Catalog
       Note: a UDF cannot be added to a Service and an Action simultaneously, as the save process has difficulties doing both at once.
       CAUTION: When the same UDF Value is used for both an Action and a Service, PCR-360 will see these as the same field, so when changes are made in Service Desk to the Service UDF Value stored will overwrite any value of the Action UDF.

   • Service Desk Inquiry - UDF applies to all Inquiries.

     • Topic - optionally limit the UDF to only some specific types of Inquiries.

   • Service Desk Quick Ticks - UDF applies to all Quick Ticks.

     • Tick Type - UDF ONLY applies to selected Tick Type.

   • Equipment - UDF applies to all Equipment.

     • Equipment Catalog - The UDF is associated with the specific Equipment selected from the Catalog.

   • Service - UDF applies to all Services.

     • Service Catalog - The UDF is associated with the specific Service selected from the Catalog.
       Note: a UDF cannot be added to a Service and an Action simultaneously, as the save process has difficulties doing both at once.
       CAUTION: When the same UDF Value is used for both an Action and a Service, PCR-360 will see these as the same field, so when changes are made in Service Desk to the Service UDF Value stored will overwrite any value of the Action UDF

5. CustomerCenter - This flag allows the UDF for the Service or Equipment to appear on the CustomerCenter.

   • When the Cust Center flag is set to true, the associated UDF will display on the Request in the Cart.

     • Service UDFs appear on new Service Requests and on all Change Actions in the cart.

     • Service Order UDFs will appear on the Service Request in the Cart.

     • Incident UDFs have two types of UDFs that appear on Incident Requests. Incident UDFs are under the heading "Additional Information", stay on the Incident, and are included to add more information about the ticket.
       

       • Item UDFs are under the heading "Information for <item name>". Item UDF values get updated on the Item record and are used to add more information to a specific Service, Equipment, or Package. 

     • Action UDFs will appear on the action type the UDF is associated with. This can be a specific type or all Actions, in the Cart, or in addition to the Service-specific UDFs.

       • Note: Using text or text area Action UDFs will allow you to create Custom Questions for the customer to answer in the Cart.

   • The UDF set in the CustomerCenter will remain for the entire Service Desk Life Cycle.

6. Aging Persist - This flag allows the UDF to remain through the Aging process if it is set.

7. Catalog Inheritance - This flag allows the UDF to be inherited by Service and Equipment Catalogs whose Parent is associated to the UDF already.
   

   

A given UDF MUST be added to the UDF Association grid for the UDF to appear on a given item. Default Values can be added to the Association once the User has saved the Association record. Check out the Default Values section for more information on adding Default Values for UDFs.

Type Definitions

• Amount of Time - The UDF is formatted as a Time tracking field which records time in hours by default.

• Checkbox - The UDF is a simple checkbox that can be selected or not.

• Currency - The UDF text box is formatted as money in USD $ and only accepts numbers to two decimals.

• Date - The UDF is a Date field with a calendar selector button.
  

  

• Decimal Number - The UDF allows only whole numbers or decimal numbers to five decimal places.

• Dropdown - This creates a drop-down UDF. When a UDF is a drop-down, a tab is added with a label of Drop-down Options. Click Here for more detail on 'Drop-down' types.

• Number - The UDF only allows whole numbers.

• Picker - The UDF is a Picker that ties into any of the existing Pickers in PCR-360. Click Here for a full listing of available pickers.

• Table - Creates an editable table of information as a UDF. Click Here for a complete description of using Table UDFs.

• Text - A text box that limits the number of Characters a given User can enter based on the Admin's setting.

• Textarea - A large text area for larger text inputs than the smaller text type allows for. It can be vertically and horizontally sized.

Drop-down

There are two Lists that a User can select from a dropdown. A 'System Defined List' or a 'User Defined List'.

• System Defined List - If the drop-down options are 'System Defined', the drop-down values are populated from the List Values grid. The Admin only needs to use the provided 'List Type' Picker to select the list.
  

  

• User Defined List - If the drop-down options are 'User Defined', the Admin needs to define each drop-down option individually. This is done through the following steps:

1. Click the  button. 

2. The 'Add New Lists' form opens.
   

   

3. Enter a 'Value' into the form. Enter a description if one is desired.

4. Click the button. 

5. Continue by clicking the button and entering any additional values for the drop-down that are desired.

6. Close the form when all the needed options have been added. These should be reflected in the grid.

All the drop-down options are added.

Toggle Status

The button sets the status of an individual drop-down value to 'Inactive', removes it from the displayed drop-downs, and does not remove it from PCR-360. This is useful for disabling the use of a retired option that cannot be deleted because it still exists on older records.

Change Option Order

Clicking the  button allows the User to set the order of the options in the drop-down. The 'List Value Order' form opens:

By selecting an item, the User can simply drag and drop the values to order them as desired. Once the values are in the chosen order, click the button.

Picker

Table

When the Table Field Type is selected, the 'Fit Width' checkbox will appear.

• Fit Width - Set whether or not this table will fill the width of the form.

• Name - Required; Defines the column name / identifier used.

• Type - Required; Defines the type of data stored in this column.

  • Standard Types include:

    • autoincrement: Will increment by one from the previous row.

    • select: A drop-down box filled with values from the options field (Defined Below).

    • text: A simple text field.

    • checkbox: A toggle-able checkbox.

    • date: Brings up a calendar view for date selection.

    • formattedtext: This is text but with limited formatting options. Use 'a' for alpha, '9' for number, and '*' for alpha or number. For a sample usage see Format.

    • number: The field will only accept digits.

    • rownumber: The current row's position in the table. Setting a default value will alter the "rownumber" value.

• Width - Required; Defines the column width (pixels).

• Label - Defines the label for the column displayed in the header row. If left blank, the Column Name will be used instead.

• Options -

1. A column delimited string for the select data type.

2. A string to be appended to the input html tag.

3. A formatted text mask.

• Default Value - Default value for this column when a new row is added.

• Description - Defines the tooltip/description to be shown when hovering over the header row.

• Required - Defines if this is a required column.

• Unique - Defines if this column must have unique values. Does nothing for the auto-increment field type or if a default value is set.

Required state

When creating or editing a UDF sometimes an Administrator wants to make the UDF Required or not. This can be set for the UDF as a whole with the Required flag.  UDF's are incomplete without a UDF Association record(s) assigned as a child record to the UDF.

On UDF Association records there is an additional Required state drop-down.  There are three possible states that a UDF Association can have with regards to 'Required':

• Inherited Value - Whatever the parent UDF is set to, whether Required or Not Required determines if the child UDF Association is Required or not.

• Required - Requires the child UDF Association regardless of the parent UDF's Required state.

• Not Required - Makes the child UDF Association not Required regardless of the parent UDF's Required state.

This allows any given UDF Association more granular control by the Administrator. For example, Users may wish to make a UDF Required on some Services but not others.

Toggle Required

From the main User Defined Fields grid, the User can toggle the 'Required' flag for a given UDF. Simply select the UDF to toggle from the grid and click the  button.

Note: This ONLY sets the Required flag of the UDF and only affects the Required state on any given UDF Association when the Association's Required state is set to Inherited Value.

Default UDF Values

This is the default value for all new records that the UDF is associated with. Any existing record will not have its current UDF value updated to the default UDF value.

When initially saving a UDF the value will always be NULL unless there is a Default Value or User entered input. Moving forward Users can specify a Default Value that the UDF will be set to when the associated record is created and saved for the first time. Default Values are controlled from the User Defined Field Association record.

Default Values MUST be added after the UDF Association record is created, otherwise, the Default Value cannot be created in the database. What this means in practice is that when a User is creating a new association, they must first save the UDF Association, then close the UDF Association form, and finally reopen it before the User can set the Default Value.

On the Manage Field Association form, simply enter the value you want and save the record. The Default Value field will dynamically alter to match the field type of the parent UDF. When a new record is added which matches the User Defined Field Association and Type, the UDF will pre-populate with the assigned value.

UDF Order

All of the UDFs that are created can be searched and sorted here. To alter the order in which they appear on their respective tabs, the User only needs to locate the appropriate UDF in the grid and click the  button. The 'User Defined Fields Order' form opens.

From here, the User can reorder the fields by using the drag and drop functionality. When the fields are ordered as desired, click the  button.

Write an AdHoc query to select UDF Data

The best way to get UDF values is to use V_UDF, which unifies all the different UDF types into a single output column.

The query will look similar to this:

SELECT
SVC.SERVICE_ID_FMT,
SVC_UDF_1.VALUE AS UDF_1_VALUE,
SVC_UDF_2.VALUE AS UDF_2_VALUE
FROM SERVICES SVC
 
LEFT JOIN V_UDF AS SVC_UDF_1 ON
        -- This identifies the table association between the value and the UDF.
        SVC_UDF_1.VALUE_TABLE_NAME = 'SERVICES'
 
        -- Link the UDF Value to the Service it was saved on
        AND SVC.RECID = SVC_UDF_1.VALUE_TABLE_RECID
 
        -- Get the exact UDF that appears on the Service
        AND SVC_UDF_1.IDENTIFIER = 'UDF_ID_1'
 
LEFT JOIN V_UDF AS SVC_UDF_2 ON
       SVC_UDF_2.VALUE_TABLE_NAME = 'SERVICES'
       AND SVC.RECID = SVC_UDF_2.VALUE_TABLE_RECID
       AND SVC_UDF_2.IDENTIFIER = 'UDF_ID_2'

In order to create an AdHoc Query, Users will need to access the AdHoc Query Builder. To build a new query click the button. This button is located in the bottom left corner of the Grid.

The UDF Identifier can be obtained by opening the UDF Grid at Admin > User Defined Fields > User Defined Fields.