Impel provides a very useful feature called Custom Fields. The Custom fields feature lets you to add 'n' number of custom fields to specific entities or the base objects in Impel. These are the fields that are specific to your organizational needs apart from standard fields given by Impel system. You can add Custom fields using a simple user interface. Only the System Administrator of your organization has access to the Custom Fields feature.You can create Custom Objects and Custom Fields (on Custom Objects and on Base Objects) on your own, with no tech skills needed.

 

 

How and where to access Custom Fields: 

 

To access the Custom fields feature, you need to:

 

1. Click on the System tab amongst the main Impel tabs or the entities.
2. Then click on the Admin Setup which is the sub tab.

3. You will now find the Custom Fields and Objects option. 


 

 

Creating Custom Field:


4. This will bring you to a list of all the Impel items to which you can   add/edit/rename labels or types. This page lists all the entities that support custom fields that are available for a particular entity. Click on the button "Add  to add a custom field.

 

   

You can add Custom Fields to all the entities listed on the left hand side.  The Label is the name that you give to the new field and the length is how long you want that field to be. 


Types of Custom Fields:


The Add Custom Field pop-up displayed in the image above shows you the different kinds of Custom Fields that you can add in Impel. This includes fields of the following types:


  • Text: a field where you can enter any Alphanumeric characters and has a maximum length of 
  • Text Area: longer alphanumeric fields such as Comments; can be upto 999 characters in length
  • Check Box: This is meant for fields that have Yes or No responses. If the field is checked, then it is a Yes. If not it is a No. You only need to provide a Name for this kind of field. Impel will automatically provide a box that can be checked.
  • Hyperlink: This is meant for fields where you want to have a URL as the field. For example, let us say you want customers to put in the URL (web page address) of a web page where they have found an error
  • Combo: Allows the user to select from a list of values in a drop-down list
  • Multi Select: Allows the user to select from a set of related fields. For example, you could let users select a State and then select Cities based on that state
  • Date: If you use this kind of field, your user will see a small calendar right next to the field
  • Date Time: This type of field will allow your user to select a date from a calendar and also key in a time
  • Integer: The user will only be allowed to enter whole numbers
  • Decimal: The user can enter numbers with a decimal point
  • Lookup: Your users would be able to fetch data from an existing list of data in Impel. For example, assume that on your Account page, you want a field called Parent Acccount, where you want to associate an account from your existing list of accounts. You could build a lookup field based on your Account list.

Combo field:

Let's say you want to provide users the ability to select a Frequency from multiple Frequencies in a drop down box. Here's how you would set that up:



Multi Select Fields:

Let's say you want to give your users the ability to choose a State and related cities in that state. Here's how you would set up a Multi Select field to take care of this:


Multi Select field setup


Here's how the Multi Select field would appear on a user screen:



Lookup Fields:


Here's how you would set up a Lookup field.



Here's what a lookup field would appear as on a user screen.





Adding a Custom Field:

Let's assume that you want to add a Custom Text Field named 'Father Name' to the contact entity. To do this Click on the System main menu tab. Then click on the Custom Fields sub menu tab.


On the Custom Fields page you will see a list of all the entities in Impel. We would like to add a custom field to the contact entity, so click the Add button on the Contact entity, which leads to custom field addition page.

 

Now add 'Fathers Name' as a text box with length 25 characters. Similarly you can add fields with text area, checkbox etc. 

 

 

 

Once you finish entering the label and length, Click on Save button. This will bring you back to Custom Fields page. 


If you click on the Contacts page now, you will not see the custom field that you just added on the Add Contact page. This is because we have not yet added the field to the page by changing the page Layout. To add the new Custom field to the page, click on layout link on Add Contact page.


Now go to the Contacts tab and click on layout will now see the new custom field that we added called 'Fathers name' under the layout option. You need to now select or choose from the left side to view it . Just double click. This confirms if the field was added or not.

 

 

   

Now drag the 'Fathers Name' field from Tab fields section to contact block and save the page layout. Once it is saved it will auto redirect to add contact page with updated page layout(i.e. with 'Father name' custom field).

 

Custom Field limitations:


Here are the maximum number of fields of various types that you can have on any Impel object.


String fields:    175 (includes Text, Textarea, Checkbox, Hyperlink, Combo and Multi Select fields)

Numeric fields:   50 (includes Integer and Decimal fields)

Date fields:        25 (includes Date and Date Time fields)

Lookup fields:    50

 


So that's how simple it is to add Custom fields of different types and configure Impel screens to include them.