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What Are Custom Fields and How Do I Put Them on a Screen?

Custom fields are the extra fields your company has added to its calls and customers in ABM, beyond the ones every company has. ABM Service does not show any of them until you place them on your own layout: you add them while customizing a call's Details page or a customer's Overview, from the Custom fields heading of the Hidden items list, and you can give them a tab of their own.

What are custom fields?​

Custom fields are fields your company set up for itself in ABM to record things the standard screens have no box for. Each company's list is different, and their names are the names your company gave them. In ABM Service they can be shown and edited on the call screen and on the customer screen. All but photo and signature fields can also be added as columns on the Calls list (under Calls Custom Fields and Actions Custom Fields) and the Customers list (under Customer Custom Fields) with Choose columns…, where they are shown but not edited.

A custom field is one of these kinds, and ABM Service shows each in the matching way: a single line of text; a drop-down, when the field has a list of choices; multi-line text, line breaks included (ABM 11's multi-line text fields among them); a whole number; an amount with two decimal places; a number with the decimal places the field allows; a date; a yes or no question; or a photo (a signature is shown as a photo too).

ABM Service cannot create, rename or delete custom fields, and it does not change their list of choices. Those stay with whoever looks after your ABM set-up.

A field whose drop-down ABM fills by looking its choices up in your data, rather than from a list typed in by your company, is shown in ABM Service as a plain text box you type into. A photo's description field is not listed on its own: it appears as the Description box under its photo. If two custom fields have the same name, each is listed with the field's short code in brackets after its name, so you can tell them apart. A custom field of a kind ABM Service cannot edit is left out of the list altogether.

If your company has just created a new custom field and you cannot find it, ask your system administrator: ABM Service reads the list of custom fields once and keeps it until it is restarted, so a new one appears after ABM Service has been restarted and you have reloaded the screen. The same is true of a field your company removes.

Why can't I see any custom fields on the call or customer screen?​

Because none are shown until you add them. The call screen and the customer screen as they come out of the box hold no custom fields at all, so each person puts on the screen only the ones they use. Once you add a field to your layout, it appears on every call (or every customer) you open with that layout.

This keeps screens quick: ABM Service only looks up the custom fields your layout actually shows, and only those on the tab you are looking at. A layout with none looks up nothing, and a tab is looked up when you first open it.

To add one, start customizing with Customize this layout… and look under Custom fields in the Hidden items list. If you pick a saved layout that has custom fields on it, they appear straight away, on whichever of its tabs they were placed.

Because layouts are personal, a colleague seeing a custom field on their call screen does not put it on yours. Ask them the field's name, then find it under Custom fields in the Hidden items list and add it to your own layout.

How do I add a custom field to the call screen or the customer screen?​

Start customizing, find the field under Custom fields in the Hidden items list, and drag it onto the form or double-click it. Then press Done; the field fills in with the call's or customer's value.

  1. Open a call or a customer.
  2. Select the small arrow beside Details (call screen) or Overview (customer screen) in the sections sidebar, and choose Customize this layout….
  3. Open the tab you want the field on, if the form has tabs. A double-click adds the field at the end of the open tab.
  4. Type part of the field's name in Find a field… at the top of the Hidden items list, or scroll down to the Custom fields heading.
  5. Drag the field onto the form where you want it, or double-click it to add it at the end.
  6. Select Done.

While you are still customizing, a newly added field usually has no value in it yet; its value is looked up when you press Done. A photo field can show its picture straight away, and a field this call or customer has already shown since you opened it shows that value again. To keep the field on your screen for good, save the layout (see How to Save and Switch Form Layouts).

Tip: If you use many custom fields, put them on a tab of their own with + Add tab above the form, so the main form stays uncluttered and their values are looked up only when you open that tab. See How to Put the Call Screen or Customer Overview on Tabs.

Call custom fields are only offered on the call screen, and customer custom fields only on the customer screen. Custom fields that belong to actions or visits cannot be shown on either screen; to see them, add them as columns on the Calls list with Choose columns…, where they are listed under Actions Custom Fields.

Why can't I add another custom field?​

Each tab of a form shows at most 20 custom fields, and a form without tabs counts as one tab. When the tab you are on already has 20, the other custom fields in the Hidden items list are drawn dimmed, and trying to add one shows a message such as "A tab shows at most 20 custom fields. Take one off this tab, or put" followed by the field's name and "on another." Hide a custom field you use less, or add the new one to another tab: open a different tab, or make one with + Add tab above the form, and the field can be added there.

Only custom fields count towards the 20. The screen's standard fields, panels, labels and groups are not counted, however many you place. Moving a group that holds custom fields onto a tab counts every custom field in it, and a move that would take that tab over 20 is refused with the same message.

Pointing at a dimmed field shows the same message, and you can still reach it with the keyboard, so you always find out why. As soon as you hide one custom field from the tab, one of the others can be added.

A saved layout that somehow holds more than 20 on one tab keeps the first 20 on that tab in the order they appear. The others are taken off, and the form's message line names them, saying they are "over the 20 a tab shows".

Why did a custom field disappear from my layout?​

If your company removes a custom field in ABM, it disappears from every layout that showed it. The first time you open or pick such a layout, the form's message line says that the layout "was saved before this screen had everything it has now" and that ABM Service "could not restore the field" with the field's name. The rest of the layout opens as usual.

Save the layout again with Update (from the Save… button beside the layouts arrow) so the message is not repeated. If you think the field should still exist, ask your system administrator.

A custom field can also seem to disappear when nothing was removed: it may be on another tab, so check the tabs across the top of the form; you may have picked a different layout; or you may have pressed Default Layout, which has no custom fields. Open the layouts list beside Details or Overview and pick the layout that had the field, or customize and add the field again from Hidden items.