Add Custom Defined Fields

Custom defined fields must have a unique combination of item, name and data type.

1. In the Customisation menu → Data Inventory Manager.
2. Search the Data Inventory Manager before you add a CDF in order to make sure that a suitable system field does not already exist.
3. In the left pane of the Data Inventory Manager window, select the item and the data category to which you would like to add a CDF.
4. In the right pane of the Data Inventory Manager window, click the button.


CDF Editor Window

5. Enter a name in the Name field. The name should be
   1. maximum 60 characters long
   2. only allowed characters are a - z and 0 - 9 i.e.
      

   • cannot contain . , / \ ( ) ! ? - @
   • cannot contain space/blanks
   • cannot contain capital/upper case character
   • cannot start with a digit.

6. Enter a label in the Label field. The label is the default custom defined field’s name that the user will see in the Data Entry Form Manager window.
7. Select the data type for the custom defined field from the Data Type list. The general recommendation is to avoid text fields if the CDF will be used for search/filter, statistics, maps and/or data quality. Users will enter data differently in text fields e.g. many different spellings of an organisation name so it is preferable to use data entry widgets where the user selects over text widget.

   Data Types for Custom Defined Fields
   Data Type	Description and Comments
   Text Field	unlimited characters
   Date	timestamp (2016-12-01 15:33:59.187)
   Number	with 6 decimals
   Organisation	Allows the user to select an Organisation
   Place	Allows the user to select a Place
   Country Structure	Allows the user to select from the Country structure
   Multiple Select	Allows the user to select zero or more values provided in the CDF Values field
   Single Select	Allows the user to select one value from provided values in the CDF Values field

When creating single-select enumeration lists, information managers should include a “Not specified” value, which users can select when no value was provided in the data collection. This value facilitate creating statistics and data quality work. Data type cannot be changed after creation of the CDF.

8. Enter a description for the custom defined field in the Description field.
9. Go through the checklist for implementation of Custom Defined Fields.

Display options for single-select and text CDFs

Display formats

For Text and Single Select CDFs, there are two different display formats to choose between.

In version 6.0 two different display formats for Text fields has been introduced.

Adding values for multi- and single-select CDFs

If you selected the Multiple Select or Single Select option, click the button.

Add multi- and single-select value window

Enter the value for the list in the Value field. When you have completed entering the values for the list, click the Done button.

You can also translate the label and, if applicable, list option values by clicking the Translate button at this time. See Translate Custom Defined Fields for more information.