Hello and Let's Start - Forms

[Tbrooke]

I cruised here to see what was going on and noticed this was up so I thought I'd throw out an extension from a good discussion on the CIC forum - and maybe sharpshooter helps this - I haven't looked at it.
The discussion on CIC revolved around customization of form templats. And ass everyone know you can right click a field and change or you can change a form template in the setup menu. You can also have a separate form for each type/category of matter. There are several issues here which I still don't believe were cleared up on CIC. This may be in the documentation but I am concerned with

1. When are changes to templates restricted to a user and when do they apply to all users.

2.What about inconsistent form I understand that text field may be interchangeable but dates and text aren't
What about text and numeric fields? What about list fields?

3. What about adding logic to powerviews to handle different fields for different matter types?

4. What;s a good discipline - other than call a CIC - to get and keep all this straight

Tom

[Steve.Stockstill]

Tom, I believe what you are referring to are Form Styles. Form Styles are created based on record Classification Codes.

>> When are changes to templates restricted to a user and when do they apply to all users.

Form Styles are not Staff relevant because they are masking the underlying database values. In other words a "phone number" must be a "phone number" no matter who is looking at it.

>> What about inconsistent form I understand that text field may be interchangeable but dates
>> and text aren't What about text and numeric fields? What about list fields?

Are you talking about what happens when the field type is changed?
All customizable data is formatted then stored as text in the database.

>> What about adding logic to powerviews to handle different fields for different matter types?

Are you referring to field labels?

>> What's a good discipline - other than call a CIC - to get and keep all this straight

Prepare an overall game plan before you start. Consider which fields should be the same for all form styles and make those changes on the default form style.

Make minimal changes to the individual form styles (which as based on class codes). If you make changes be as consistent as possible.

I hope this helps...

And yes, SharpShooter has a utility called the Form Style Manager which provides a holistic view of your form styles and the individual overrides for each class code. http://www.dataequity.com/content/view/135/87/

--steve

[Tbrooke]

Sorry for the hasty post

I am referring to Form Styles in relation to categories and not users. Items like addresses are easy so for example the adjuster address name and fields could be Attorney fields with different labels in a different matter type and there wouldn't be a problem.

What happens when you have a user field that is say date in the style for workers comp matters and it get changed to phone in another say in the PI matter. I realize that the form style is just a mask with a label for data entry and display for a particular field but I assume the underlying database has separate text, date (I believe you had a post on date formats) and numeric fields that need to be consistent. It seems from your response that if the field is changed then the data gets reformatted to fit the underlying field.

Maybe I need to go to sql 101 school but it seems to me that a particular field - say user02 corresponds to a particular column in the sql database and if you switch your format in a matter style which TM allows you to do easily you could get a mess. I am getting ready to adjust several matters on a large database an I am realizing that this could be trouble. If you have 10 different matter styles with differing fields in each you have a complex problem.

I guess this is moor an observation than a question

Tom Brooke
Brooke and Brooke Attorneys
www.brookelaw.com