Examples of custom fields might include a tracking number or an reference order number from another system. Apart from entering and saving data into custom fields, you can also filter by custom fields, and import and export data from those fields too.
Setting up Custom Fields in Insightly
You can find the page for adding and configuring custom fields under the Settings menu, which is the small silver gear icon in the top right. Insightly administrators can configure up to ten custom fields each for contacts, organizations, opportunities and projects. Field types can be either text, dates, or chosen from a list of possible options (in a dropdown).
When on the tab the corresponds to the record type you want to add a field to, click the 'Add New Custom Field' link to add a new field. In this case we're going to add two new custom fields to every contact record in Insightly.
The two new custom fields we're going to add to contacts are a 'Referred By' field that tracks who referred the contact to us, and a 'Referral Date' field that records the date that the contact was referred to us. The 'Referred By' field is going to be a text field so we can type in the name of the person that referred the contact to us, and the 'Referral Date' field is going to be a date field.
The other option available for the field type is a 'Drop Down' field, which is a good choice if you have a limited number of options to choose from and want the field data saved to be consistent between records (no misspellings of the same choice etc).
Now that we have our two custom fields for contacts setup - they will be shown on both the 'Add Contact' and 'Edit Contact' forms, and we can now save data into those fields for any contact. Data saved will be shown on the contact details page too.
You can see our two new custom fields in the 'Add Contact' form screenshot below. The help text appears in a popup when you mouse over the '?' icon to the right of the field name, and if you have a date custom field a date picker will be shown.
When you're viewing a contact that has data entered for our two new custom fields, the information is displayed on the contact details page as shown below.
Filtering by Custom Fields
Custom Fields are also available in the field list for filtering. So we can filter our contacts list for contacts that have a date of referral (our custom field) after the 1st of October 2011.
Custom Fields are also available in the field list to map to when importing from a CSV file, and they are output when exporting your records to a CSV file for contacts, organization, opportunities and projects.
Custom Fields is one of those features that only a percentage of our customers need, but if you need them you really need them. They add flexibility to Insightly and make it a more customizable product that's adaptable to more businesses. We hope you like 'em !
SUPER!! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIncredible! I think this will benefit everyone!every business needs to customize according to their needs, this is what makes unsightly so great!!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe custom fields do now show up in the search box. That is a pity. We used this for giving customer-numbers. Entering a customer number would quickly give us a list of this customer.. well I hoped for that. Maybe for future?
ReplyDeleteRegards, great system!
Is the any app for google Android? That would helps a lot!
ReplyDeleteThank you for implementing the custom fields, we've been looking forward to this. Could you please consider adding custom field solutions to the Status entries as well? There are more situations than Not Started, Completed, Deferred, etc that we would like to be able to signify within our organization.
ReplyDeleteFantastic, thanks! Like you said, when you need them, you REALLY need them. I hate re-purposing a built in field I don't use for something it's not named for.
ReplyDeleteCan we have them on Tasks too? :)
When using a drop-down menu for a custom field, I would love to be able to select more than one option (for example, let's say I set up a custom filed on a contact record for Languages Used - I would love to be able to select more than one option from the drop down menu, ie. English, French, Spanish, etc.) Any thoughts about making this a possibility?
ReplyDeleteI agree. Simply add multiple choice as one of the options and that would take care of this. Also why just limit it to 10 custom fields? Personally I need more than 10.
DeleteLastly would be helpful to make the edit view as 2 columns. Presently as 1 column involves too much scrolling.
Hi All - just started to use insight.ly and think it is very clean and simply to use, however, I have a couple of questions.
ReplyDelete1. When you add a contact from the organisation screen you have to re-enter the address. It would be great if the address came down or at least have a tick box 'copy from organisation'
2. I have added a custom field to organisation called 'Industry' (in order to identify their sector ie Legal, ICT etc... however if I then want to filter the contacts by this field I cannot as I can only select Contact fields. The way round is to add a custom field to the contacts called 'type' but then I'm duplication data input.
I am new to insight.ly so these points may actually be there but I have not found them yet so apologies if this is the case.
I agree with add a tic box to copy the address for a contact from an organization. In most cases this would be the case. The exceptions would be few and far between.
Delete+1
DeleteCustom fields still needs some work. Need to be able to set field order. Need more than 10. Need to be able to "Group" custom fields together.
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteYep. Need more than 10
Deleteany body else have import problems with these custom fields? different contacts have different fields populated after import - can't figure out why data is getting lost for some and not for others.
ReplyDeleteIt would be great if we could reorder the custom fields. For example I use quite a few with Contacts and I want to rearrange them. Currently I would have to delete them all and add them again, losing all the data in the process. Is this something that you will be adding?
ReplyDeleteMany thanks
We need drag and drop capabilites so we can re-arrange the order of custom fields.
DeleteDo You plan to have the custom field feature for Tasks?
ReplyDeleteThat would help my customers (where I implemented Insightly) a lot, as they could do the time tracking of the tasks as well - now they need to use different SWs for that!
(even one single custom field on tasks would be a great help...)
Many Thanks!
ForceDavid Brasil
Custom Fields is a very nice feature! I would like to ask if you plan in the future to allow more then 10 custom fields - a limitation which seems to me quite random anyway... ;-)
ReplyDeleteWe would be very happy to substitute most attached google docs by more custom fields which we can include in filters.
Regards
René
please....give us more than 10 custom fields. that simply is not enough
DeleteCustom fields for Tasks would be very much welcomed.
ReplyDeleteAny plans on implementing this?
Thanks in advance.
Mike
I would like to see more types of custom fields. Can we have radio buttons and check boxes and require certain fields? For example if you had a "Lead Source" field one option could be "Referral" and if you select that then you must specify more information such as the name of the person who referred the lead.
ReplyDeleteAny plan for new custom field such as URL ?
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteI created custom fields in my projects section. When I tried to upload a CSV file the fields that I created showed up but the data never uploaded. There was even a record of the import on the right side of the projects page. Does anyone know how to fix this?
ReplyDelete