Text Additional Fields

A text field is used to enter free text information. They can be linked to Lookup Sets. Text fields generally allow for more characters than a string field, except when they are used in a Lookup Set.

Once this format is selected, the following option becomes available:

  • Insert Lookup Items from the following Lookup Set - text based Additional Fields can be linked to a Lookup Set.

    Multiple values can be selected from this Lookup Set using KwikSelect - only one at a time.

    Each value appears separated by a semi-colon.

    When text Additional Fields are configured to use a Lookup Set, validation of the Lookup Set item will not be performed. Validation is only performed for string Additional Fields.

    This means that users can select items from a Lookup Set and then overtype them with different values.

    On New Record forms, multiple Lookup Set items can be added in one step by tagging the items.

    • Restrict text to valid lookup items only - select this option to only allow the selection of lookup items, users will not be able to type in this field.
  • Perform a mandatory spell check - select this option so a spell check must be done on the field. This overrides the corresponding System Options.
  • When using an add-in, restrict editing to just the KwikSelect button - the value must be selected from a pre-defined list using the KwikSelect.
  • Default Value - set a default value that will appear in the field when it is used for an object.

    You can check the spelling of the text by clicking spell check at the end of the field.

NOTE:

  • Additional text Fields behave like other text fields, for example Notes fields, and will be automatically indexed.

    These fields are therefore searchable using the Additional Field search method.

  • Text Additional Fields have the same limit as Notes fields, which is 64K, or 65536 bytes.

    When you reach the limit in the Additional Fields dialogue, a message will advise that it will be truncated to 65536 characters.

  • If there is a text Additional Field with an associated Lookup Set, text is limited to 254 characters

Provenance Additional Field - the text type Additional Field can also be set up to implement a Provenance type field.

A Provenance field is used to record the organisation or Location that was responsible for the initial creation of the record, and is captured at the time the record is created so that it will not be changed when modifications are made to the Locations.

It can only be applied to records.

This field is completed in the form with details derived from the user currently logged on to the database:

  • Agency - licensee
  • Unit - highest level Organisation of the creator
  • Unit - next level Organisation of the creator
  • Unit - lowest level Organisation of the creator
  • Position - position of the creator
  • Created - the creator name
  • Dated - day, month year, for example Wednesday, 27 September 2006

If any of these items are not listed in the Location table - for example, the creator may not be associated with any Position - then it will be omitted from the displayed data.

To implement a Provenance field, insert the string %PROVENANCE%in the Default Value field of a text type Additional Field and then attach the field to a Record Type.

When a record is created using this Record Type, the Provenance field will be automatically filled in.

To quickly see the Provenance details, you can add the Provenance field to the view pane.

See also Creating Additional Fields for definitions of the other common fields that appear on this dialogue, for example, Name and Abbreviation.