BigTime allows you to customize your custom fields. This is helpful when you’d rather have a monetary value, picklist (dropdown menu), or website link for your custom field, instead of BigTime’s default option: a text box.
Now that you’ve created a custom field, follow these steps to access the customization features. Then, we’ll look at the many ways you can customize a custom field.
1. Click MY COMPANY, on the right-side of the navigation bar, and then click PROJECT LIST. This will take you to your list of projects.
2. Find the project you want to customize a custom field for.
3. Go to the DETAILS tab and scroll to the bottom. Click ADD/EDIT CUSTOM FIELDS.
4. Click on the PENCIL AND PAPER icon to access the customization features.
5. Click on the gray arrow under FIELD TYPE.
Notice several options in the picklist. These are the ways you can personalize information in your custom field, which we’ll look at next.
Customizing Options for Custom Fields
Let’s go through your many options for customizing your custom fields:
String: Enter text into a field box with this selection. When you select “String,” you’ll notice two additional options: Default Value and Value Length.
Default Value refers to a value you want your custom field to resort to, or default to, in each project. In our example, we chose the phrase “The lead editor is.” This phrase is applied to our custom field in each project, but we can modify the text in all of our 15 projects.
For example, we’ll note that Suzy Jones is the lead editor for ABC Studios project, and Steve Johnson is the lead editor in DEF Studios project.
Value Length refers to a character limit for the custom field. In the example below, we made the character limit 15. So a user can only use 15 characters in the text box.
Boolean: Make a checkbox available for your custom field. Users can check or uncheck the box to indicate a binary value, like true or false. In the example below, a user can click on the box to indicate if there’s a lead editor for the project.
Currency: Type a currency value in the field box. A dollar sign will automatically generate in the field box, then you just have to add the amount. Look at our example:
Date: Add a calendar date as your custom field. When you select this option, BigTime will generate a calendar and you can select a date. It’ll look like this:
Double: Add number values with decimal points. Keep in mind that you can’t add characters like a dollar sign with this option.
Integer: Add whole number values to the field. Again, it’s important to note that you can’t add characters like a dollar sign with this option.
Link: Incorporate a link to Google Docs or Dropbox, if you’ve got documents you want to share. Or simply add a website that’s project-specific.
You can even preview your link before saving it in your custom field:
Lookup: Create a picklist with this option. After you select LOOKUP, find LOOKUP VALUES and type the values you want in your picklist.
In our example below, we included “research” and “fact check” as values.
Click CLOSE in field settings box, and your picklist will look something like this:
Percent: Use this field to create percent.
Don’t forget to save your work!