Field Options

All fields (or multiple field types)

These options apply to many different types of field, in some cases all field types

Icon

Used occasionally to show the field as an icon instead of text. The name of an icon from https://fontawesome.com/icons needs to be entered, e.g. ‘fa-phone’

Capitalise field name

This is on by default - usually fields should be consistently capitalised in the user interface, however they’re entered. The only time you may want to turn this off is if you have a particular field name which has unusual capitalisation, e.g. pH in chemistry

Unique

The database will prevent any duplicate values being entered. See also multi-field unique constraints

Required (hard validation)

If a field is marked required, the system will force a user to enter this field when creating or editing a record - be careful not to over-use this option as if the user won’t be able to do anything else until a value has been supplied

Prominent (soft validation)

Prompts a user that a particular field is key or important by highlighting it in a red box if there’s no value, but doesn’t force the entry of a value

Change causes record refresh

Used to reload the current screen or tab when a value is changed. This can be very useful when used in conjunction with hiding or showing fields (see below). e.g. to show a set of outcome fields when an opportunity status changes from ‘in progress’ to ‘closed’

Lock when value set (and unlock when record in view)

Used for fields that should never change their value (unless for a very good reason). When a field is locked, someone who wants to change the value has to enter a comment saying why it was changed. That comment will be timestamped and will be shown next to the field from then on. Typical uses would be for things like stock codes.

Unlock when record in view

Allows a field to be unlocked only in certain circumstances. For example, you may allow a product code to change when it’s in development but become locked as soon as it goes live. This requires a ‘criteria’ view to be created with filters on to include only records where the field should be unlocked

Show if record in view

Allows the field to be hidden completely until certain criteria are reached. Similar to ‘unlock when record in view’, a criteria view has to be created. It can be useful to combine this with the ‘required’ option sometimes, to show a forced field only when necessary.

Set from previous referenced field

For a field which isn’t filled in yet, allows the system to calculate a value to set it to. To specify the calculation, a view must be created then inserted as a cross-reference field just before the field to set.

Note: if you want to calculate a value at the time of record creation, it’s better to use a workflow rule set to fire on record creation. That works faster and more efficiently.