Managing Details

Types of Detail Fields

• Action Fields appear in the Action page.
• Company Fields appear in the Companies page.
• Contact Fields appear in the Contacts page.
• CSI Fields appear in the Customer Support page. You can specify the sections where the fields will appear.
• FA Fields appear in the Failure Analysis page. You can specify the sections where the fields will appear.
• Incident Fields appear in the Incident page. You can specify the sections where the fields will appear.
• Location Fields appear in the Locations page.
• Part Fields appear in the parts that are associated with system templates.
• Problem Fields appear in the Problem page. You can specify the sections where the fields will appear.
• Project Fields appear in the Project page. You can specify the sections where the fields will appear.
• Serialized Part Fields appear in the parts that are associated with serialized systems.

The options depend on the type of field (description, date, check box, etc.) and record (incident, problem, etc.). Some current settings appear in parentheses under the field name. In the following example, the "Custom Text Field" will display in the first detail field position in the "Incident Details" area of the Incident page, and it will be read-only after a value is entered. The "Custom Date Field" will display in the second portion of that area, and is required (red text).

Fields identified with an asterisk (*) are referred to as "special detail fields" and can be retired but not deleted.

Security Details

Security details can be created for incident, problem, project and CSI records to restrict certain users from accessing these records. See About Security Details for more information.

Adding or Editing a Field

To add a new field, click the Add icon, , for the relevant record type. To edit an existing field, select it using the radio button to the left of the field and then click Edit, .

Note that you can use the same detail field in multiple entities, if desired. The Add or Remove Entities area shows the entities that you have access to, and allows you to choose which ones will include the detail field you're currently editing. If you do not have access to all the entities where a field is used, you can add or remove it from the entities that you have access to, but you can't edit the other options.

1. If applicable, select the area that the field will appear in from the Section or Step drop-down list.
2. Select a Field Type from the drop-down list.
3. Enter the Field Name (the label shown in the interface) and Field Description (the tip that appears when a user points to the field).
4. Specify whether user input is Optional/Required. This option is not available for the following field types: Accessory; Attachments Table; Check Box; Separator; Status.
5. Specify the Display Order, which determines where the field will be displayed in the page. If you don't specify a value, XFRACAS will automatically assign one. If the display order numbers are not in sequence (e.g., 1, 2, 4), then a blank space will fill that position.
6. Enable Span width of page, if desired. This forces the detail field to span the entire width of the area on the page. If not selected, the field will display at its default width, which varies depending on the field type.
7. Specify the Default Value that will be displayed on new record creation, if applicable. This option is not available for the following field types: Accessory; Address; Attachments Table; Company; Current System Users; Failure Mode; Separator; Status; System Contacts; Tree.
8. If applicable, select an Existing Dropdown. For some detail types (e.g., select list, tree, etc.), you will need to use the Lists page to configure values that will be available to select. When you create the detail, you can choose an Existing Dropdown or leave the option blank so XFRACAS will create a new list.
9. Specify whether the detail is read-only. The Read-only options allow you to make the detail unavailable to edit in certain circumstances. The options depend on the field and/or record type.
   • Always - the field is always read-only in the web interface (e.g., because the value is intended to be imported). If the value is imported incorrectly, only a user with the "Details - Overwrite Read-Only" permission will be able to modify it.
   • After a value is entered - once a user enters a value in the field, it can't be changed.
10. Specify the Number of Lines Displayed. This option is available for the Description field type only. If not specified, then the number of lines displayed is set by the XFRACAS - Description Number of Lines Displayed preference.

Deleting or Retiring a Field

To remove or retire a field, first select it and then click the Delete icon, .

• If the field is a special detail field (identified with an asterisk) or has already been used in any existing records, it will be retired for the current entity and appear grayed out.
• If the field has never been used in any existing records, it will be completely removed.

To unretire a detail field, select the field name and click the Edit icon, . You will see a message confirming that you want to unretire the detail field. Click OK to proceed.

Using Spaces and Separators

To add or remove spaces above a particular detail, select the radio button to the left of the field and then click the Add Space or Delete Space links for the relevant record type.

To add a line within an area of the space, add a "Separator" detail. The Field Description will display as a label within the page, and the Field Name will display as a tip when the user points to the separator. If you leave both fields blank, only the line will be displayed.

In the following example, there are 4 extra spaces between a custom description field (in position 4) and a separator (in position 9) that identifies a custom sub-section within two list fields (positions 10 and 11).