Creating a Custom Field as a Combo Box on the Project Add/Edit Form

Video shows you how to add a custom field as a combo box on your project add/edit form (or any item)

Transcript:

In this video, I will show you how to create a custom field that is a combo box on the project. The first thing you're going to want to do is go to your add-ons. You can do that from the home screen or from the main menu. You must be a system admin to see add-ons.

When you get to the add-ons, you'll need to install custom fields if you haven't done so already. I already have it installed. This video also covers adding a combo box to a custom item, so you can have custom fields and your own custom items. Therefore, this video covers both of those situations.

In this case, I'm going to create a custom field on a project. I'll hit "configure," and I'm going to choose the project item. I already have a couple of custom fields, but I'm going to add a new one now. I'm going to call this custom field "Custom Combo Box," so you would name it what you want your field to be.

The next thing you're going to want to do is find the "Combo Box" input type. Here you can just type it in if you want; you can pick it or type it in. By the way, a combo box is a drop-down that you can type in. You can optionally have a parent combo box to cascade the values, which is covered in a different video. In this case, I’m going to go ahead and put a value of 1 in, then hit the plus key and add value 2. Then I will hit plus for value 3.

Those are now all three active values in this combo box. If I want one of them to be the default when the form is loaded for the first time, it will be set as default. You can also deactivate them, so if you want to take a value away later and make it inactive, you can do that. In this case, I don’t want them both to be active, and they’re both on, so I’m ready to go.

There are a couple of other options here. You can upload the list from Excel; so you click here, and if you want to get all the values as a template, you can choose "Get Template," and it will get downloaded to your system. You’ll notice it is opening up my Excel. Let me grab that again. Let me open it from my computer.

Here's the template to fill in. You would just do it this way. Make sure you enable editing, as your antivirus or system might have that disabled. You would put in "Value 1," "Value 2," "Value 3," and "Value 4." You’ll want to specify if it’s active—if you leave a blank, it will be active by default, but you can also specify the background color. This would be a hex color if you want to put a color in for these drop-downs. That’s an option. The reason you might use the Excel option is if you have a long list; otherwise, you can just type them in.

Similarly, you can put a background color in. Use the hex value for it, and what that will do is allow your custom drop-down to have colors associated with them. Once you’ve done that, you’ll choose where it’s going to go on your form. You can say "top of form," which puts it high up, or "bottom of form." Most of our defaults are that custom fields just go to the bottom of the form, but you can also put them in different tabs. You can name the tabs in the advanced options for custom fields on this item as well.

In this case, I’m just going to leave it at the bottom of the form. I’m going to leave the field order at 10. This creates a sequence of field numbers—you set the first one as 10, the second one as 20, the third one as 30. It lets you reorder your fields.

There are some options here as well. If you want the column to be a default column on the project report, do you want it to be a filter? Do you want it to be grouped by? Normally, for a combo box, you might want it to be a filter and grouped by. You probably wouldn't sum it, as this is generally used for numbers.

There are some other advanced options for having JavaScript events and style sheet information as well. Those are covered in a different video, but this is how you create a combo box. Once I hit "Save," I can go check it out by going to my project.

You’ll see I have a custom combo box at the bottom of the form. If you choose "top of form," it will be higher up above some of the native fields, but here it is at the bottom of the form. If you choose a tab, it would show in a tab over here.

I'll quickly go back to show you where, if you wanted to manage your tabs, you can come in here and say "Tab 1" is going to be called "Extra Info." If I put a label in there, it will create that tab. As long as there are any fields in the tab, otherwise, it will just say "Custom Fields." There are a lot of options involved with custom fields, and this video just shows you the basics of how to put a drop-down right onto your project form.