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Editing Fields
About the Field Editor
Before you start recording and tracking issues, you probably need to customize some of the fields used to collect information. For example, the Problem Area and Priority fields should list choices that correspond to your terminology and environment.
You may want to delete unused fields, add new fields to track additional information, or add new tabs. For example, you may want to add a tab for hardware configuration details.
HelpDesk Admin provides a simple Field Editor for editing fields. To open this editor, click Field Editor on the Project menu. The Field Editor allows you to edit field definitions, but to export fields to Web views you use the Web View Editor.
Editing Fields
Click a field in the Field list to edit, copy, rename, or delete the field. The Field list contains all the fields defined in the project.
The buttons beside the Field list allow you to create new fields or copy, delete, or edit the selected field.
Destination Tab
Tabs allow you to group sets of related fields.
Labels
A field has two labels. One label is the field name, which appears in choice lists such as the Field list in any of the HelpDesk Admin editors. The other label is the caption that appears beside the field in a Web view.
Data
Under Data, you specify what type of input the field accepts: text, dates, times, numbers, yes/no values, or choices from a list.
The choices displayed in a choice list field are defined in a choice table. To edit and create choice tables, click
beside the Table Containing Choices list to open the Choice Editor.
Field Is check boxes
The Field Is check boxes give you control over how the field behaves in a Web view. Required fields cannot be left blank. Visible fields appear in a Web view, instead of being hidden. Enabled fields accept user input, while disabled fields are read-only (they display data but do not accept user input).
Show in Choice Lists
This check box controls whether you can use the field to build queries, reports, and other styles.
Maintain Revision History
controls whether Enterprise HelpDesk tracks revisions to the field, and whether you can use the field for update notifications (update notifications are generated when the value of a field changes).
Adding Fields
About Adding Fields
You can add new fields to any of the tabs. New fields are automatically available in all Enterprise HelpDesk editors, such as the Query Editor and Report Editor.
New fields are not automatically exported to Web views. You must use the Web View Editor to export the fields and regenerate the Web views.
You can use an existing field as a starting point for a new field. In the Field list, click a field and then click
.
Adding New Fields to Reports
When you add new fields, you should update the reports that Enterprise HelpDesk uses to print issues and to format notifications.
Making Fields Required
By default, fields are optional, which means users can leave the fields blank when they submit an issue. To make a field required, select the Required check box. Users cannot save an issue without filling in a required field. Required fields have a highlighted label in a Web view.
Making Fields Read-Only
To make a field read-only, clear the Enabled check box.
Using Fields to Define Styles
If you don't need to use a field to build queries, sorts, layouts, reports, or notifications, clear the Show in Choice Lists check box. This removes the field from the Field lists of editors such as the Query Editor. It also removes the field from the Fields list in the Ad-hoc Query Editor of a Web view.
For example, the Attachments field is a field that you don't need for queries, sorts, layouts, reports, or notifications. How often would you expect users to search for or sort issues based on what files are attached?
Tracking Changes
If you don't need to track changes to a field, clear the Maintain Revision History check box. Enterprise HelpDesk won’t update the revision history when a user changes the field.
For a memo field, Enterprise HelpDesk doesn’t track the actual changes to the field value. Instead, Enterprise HelpDesk marks the field as “modified”.
If you want to send notifications when a field is updated, you must select the Maintain Revision History check box for that field.
Choosing a Destination Tab
The Destination Tab specifies the tab to which the new field is added.
Fields added to the Contact tab are read-only (visible but not enabled). These fields are also added to the Users and Contact page in HelpDesk Web Admin, which is where you enter data into the fields.
To create new tabs, use HelpDesk Web Admin. See Working with Tabs.
Setting Field Labels
Field Caption is the label that appears beside the field in a Web view. You can override this label in the Web View Editor by setting the Caption attribute.
Choice Lists is the label that appears in any choice list that allows a user to choose a field (for example, in the Field list of the Ad-hoc Query Editor of a Web view). To change this label, click
to rename the field.
Choosing a Field Type
Currency, Date, Number, Text, and Time
These are all input fields where a user can enter text. Enterprise HelpDesk automatically validates the text entered in these field types, and displays a warning if a user enters any invalid characters or uses the wrong format.
For example, Number fields accept only numeric values, and Currency, Date, and Time fields require the input values to follow the Windows Regional Settings.
Memo
A Memo field is a text field that allows a large amount of characters to be input.
Single Choice and Multi Choice
These fields are drop-down lists of choices. Choice lists present fixed lists of choices to the user. Multi Choice fields allow a user to select one or more choices.
Yes/No
This is a check box.
Setting the Field Size
For Text fields, the field size is the maximum number of characters that a user can type in the field. For Number fields, however, the size is the data size (Byte, Integer, Long Integer, Double, or Single).
Removing Fields
About Removing Fields
To remove a field, you can either delete it or hide it. Or you can simply not export the field when you generate your Web views.
You can also disable fields, making them read-only (see Making Fields Read-Only).
Deleting Fields
Deleting a field removes it and all stored data from the issue database. If you don't want to lose the data, you can disable the field, hide it, or remove it from the Web views.
You can delete a field only if it is not used in any query, sort, layout, report, or notification.
Hiding Fields
Because you can simply remove a field from a Web view (by not exporting the field), hiding fields is not something you will do often. However, you may want to hide a field if some of the queries you export use the field, but you don’t want users to see the field.
To hide a field in all Web views of a project, clear the Visible check box in the Field Editor. To hide a field in specific Web views, use the Visible attribute of the field in the Web View Editor.
Note that if you hide a field, it is still available in editors such as the query, sort, layout, and report editors, unless you clear the Show in Choice Lists check box.
Queries do not work if the fields used in the query definition are not in the Web view.
Removing Fields from Web Views
Using the Web View Editor, you can remove fields from some Web views and leave the fields in other views.
Working with Choice Lists
About Choice Lists
A choice list is a list of choices displayed in a selection list on an HTML form. The list of choices is defined in a choice table.
Editing Choice Tables
You can edit the choices in the list from either:
Both allow you to add new choices, delete choices, change choice text, and reorder choices.
Using HelpDesk Admin
Use HelpDesk Admin when you want to create new choice tables. Using the Field Editor, you can both create the choice table and associate it with a field.
Also, use HelpDesk Admin when you want to edit the Progress choice table. Progress choices must be mapped to State choices (see Editing the Progress and State Lists), and you can do this only with the Field Editor.
When to use HelpDesk Web Admin
Use HelpDesk Web Admin to edit existing choice tables (for example, when you want to edit choice text or add new choices). While you can create new choice tables in HelpDesk Web Admin, you cannot associate the new choice table with a field—for that you need to use the Field Editor in HelpDesk Admin.
Also, don’t use HelpDesk Web Admin to edit the Progress choice list. Use HelpDesk Admin instead. All Progress choices must be mapped to a State choice, and you cannot edit (or even view) that mapping in HelpDesk Web Admin.
Any new choices you do add to Progress will not be mapped to a State choice. And if you do edit the text of a Progress choice, remember that if the new text changes the sense of the choice, the State field will be set incorrectly. For example, if you change “Resolved” to “Reopened”, then Reopened will still be mapped to the Closed state.
HelpDesk Web Admin can also delete choice lists, but only if they are not referenced by a field.
Advantages of HelpDesk Web Admin
The advantage of HelpDesk Web Admin is that you can edit choice lists across the Web. You don't have to be sitting at a machine where HelpDesk Admin is installed.
Editing Choice Text
When you change the text of a choice, you must update any queries that test the choice value. For example, consider this query:
If you change the choice text from "Assigned" to "InProgress" in the choice table, then the query will not find any issues. Issues store the index of the choice, but queries store the actual text.
Renaming Choice List Tables
HelpDesk Web Admin (in the Choice List list on the Choices tab) displays a name associated with the choice table, not the name of the choice list field.
A choice table actually has two names: the name of the choice table (for example, “tblState”) and a friendly name (for example, “State”). HelpDesk Web Admin displays the friendly name. You can change the friendly name by renaming the choice table in HelpDesk Web Admin.
Sorting Choice Lists
Choices can be listed in alphabetical order, or in any order that you want. For example, a non-alphabetic choice order such as Highest, High, Medium, Low, Lowest is more appropriate for a list of relative values than the alphabetic order.
When you create a new choice list, you choose how you want to order the list. The Allow Choice Order Sort check box controls whether a choice list supports non-alphabetic choice orders and sorts.
By default, Enterprise HelpDesk automatically lists choices in alphabetic order. But when you allow choice order sorts, you can specify a non-alphabetic choice order, and you can define sorts that sort issues by choice order as well as by alphabetic order.
To specify a non-alphabetic choice order, you assign a numeric ID to each choice. This ID represents the position of the choice in the list (1st, 2nd, and so on).
If you do not specify the choice order, Enterprise HelpDesk automatically sorts the list into alphabetic order.
Editing the Progress and State Lists
The Progress choice list is a special type of choice list. When a user selects a choice from the Progress list, the State field is automatically set to either Open or Closed.
If you want to change the mapping of Progress values to State values, you must use HelpDesk Admin.
In HelpDesk Admin, the choice table for the Progress list contains an extra column that maps Progress choices to State choices. You must fill in this column when you add or edit the choices in the Progress list.
When you edit the State choice table, remember that the Closed choice is the choice that sets the Closed Date and Time fields. So, for example, changing the choice text from “Closed” to something else may confuse users.
If you edit the Progress choice list, you should check that workflow rules based on the Progress field still work.
Applying Changes
To apply changes to fields, HelpDesk Admin must log off the users who are logged on to Web views of the project.
Working with Tabs
HelpDesk Web Admin allows you to add new tabs to a project. After you add a new tab, you use the Field Editor to add new fields to the tab. To move existing fields onto the new tab, you’ll have to use Microsoft Access—see Moving Fields Between Tabs.
You can also reorder the tabs, change the tab names, and delete tabs. To delete tabs you must either delete all the fields on the tab or move the fields to another tab.
 Vector Networks http://www.vector-networks.com Voice: +44 (0) 1827 67333 Fax: +44 (0) 1827 67068 info@vector-networks.co.uk |
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