Custom/Reportable Fields and Groups

As we've already discussed in a previous article, when creating Forms and Flows there are two types of Questions you can add to your forms - Discover Fields and Standard Fields. 

Discover Fields are free-form.  You create the field/question and response options as you're building the form.  These are great if you want to quickly add a question to a form which will be used for routing purposes or need to ask the Candidate to upload a document.  The problem with these types of fields is that they're not reportable.  The question and its responses only exist within the form.

If you want to add a question that can be reported on, you'll need to create a Custom Field.  Again, you'll be able to specify the type of question and response options, but this time the field (and answer) is saved against a Record, making it reportable.

We'll look at how to create custom fields in Phase 3 - right now, you just need to decide whether you need to create some, and if so, what information needs to be captured.

There are three elements to consider when thinking about custom fields:

Field Groups

Hopefully the name here is relatively self-explanatory - it's a group of fields.

Field Groups allow you to create your own tab within a record, and group together a series of related fields.

Here we have an example of the Field Groups contained within a Candidate Record.  If we were to click in to each of the named field groups we'd see the related fields.  For example, clicking into Bank would show the Candidate's Bank Account information (Bank Name, Account Number, Sort Code, etc).  Clicking into E, D & I would show the candidates Equal Opportunities data.

As part of this preparation phase of your implementation, if you've already decided that you need to create some custom fields or option types (more on these later), you'll need to decide where in the record they'll live - which Field Group to put them in.  Will you be able to use one of the existing field groups, or do you need to create some new ones?

If you've decided that you'll need to create a new one, you'll need to consider the following:

• What will the field group be called?  This will display within the record

• What type of record with the group be aligned to: Applications, Companies, Candidates, Contacts, Opportunities, Placements or Vacancies?

• Do you want the group to show when creating a new record of that type?

• Do you want the group to show when editing a record of that type?

• Where within the list of existing field groups do you want the new one to show?

Fields

There are two main categories of fields available to you:

Page Text fields are static fields which can be used to display non-editable text within the system or within a form.  There are three types of Page Text fields available:

• Section Headings display as a single line of text formatted as a Heading

• Paragraphs display as a single paragraph, even if you have entered the text as multiple paragraphs

• HTML is the most versatile option, giving you a basic HTML editor.  With this option you can create custom headers and paragraphs with your own formatting, and even add images and videos!

When creating a Page Text field you'll need to consider:

• What type of page text field you'd like to use
• Which Field Group to put it into
• Whether it should be displayed on Application Form printouts
• Where within the Field Group it should be displayed
• What the field should be called
• Whether it should be visible in the Candidate, Hiring Manager and Vendor Portals and, if so, whether the same name should be used or if a more friendly name is needed

Input Fields are fields which require the user or Candidate to enter an answer.  The following types of input fields are available:

• Short Answer
• Long Answer
• Drop Down
• Multiple Choice
• Checkboxes
• Date
• Number
• Decimal
• Yes/No
• Linear Scale (1 to 5)

When creating an Input Field, you'll need to consider the same things as with Page Text fields, along with:

• Min/Max characters/words for short and long answers
• Which Option Type to use (more on these later) for drop down lists, multiple choice and checkbox fields
• Min/max numbers for number and decimal fields
• Whether a yes/no should display as checkboxes, radio buttons or radio buttons with a Not Specified option
• For all input field types you'll also need to consider any help text you'd like to include

User Option Types

User Option Types are used to capture the list of responses that should be displayed within a drop down list, multiple choice and checkbox input field.

User Option Types can be used within multiple input fields.  In other words, if you have a few different questions you'd like to ask, but you want the same set of options to be available, you only need to create one User Option Type.

A really good example would be the Location user option type - the same set of values can be displayed within the Vacancy Location field, Candidate Preferred Location field and Base Location on an Offer!

As far as this phase of your implementation is concerned, you'll need to collate all the different lists you'll need to use within the system and decide whether they need to go in to the existing User Option Types available as a default (such as Location) or whether you need to create a new User Option Type (and what it needs to be called).  The answer to this question will be largely driven by the Fields you need to create, discussed above.

I'm still not sure what I need to do - are there any examples I can see?

Yep - log in to Eploy and go to Admin > Customise Fields > Custom Fields.

Here you'll be able to see the three options described above: Field Groups, Fields and User Option Types.