Custom Fields

Custom Fields enable you to customize the information captured within Work Items. Custom Fields, when grouped into Collections and assigned to Item Types, form a powerful method for creating consistency in the data associated with all of your work items.

To create and arrange custom fields go to Settings, and under Data Model, click Custom Fields.

1 - Create Fields

Click the green "New" button to create a custom field and choose the predefined field type from the dropdown list. Each Custom Field that you create will be placed in the global Custom Fields list, organized by field type and available for others to use as well.

Options-type fields

Two field types let you define a fixed list of choices that contributors pick from:

• Text Options List — a list of text values.
• Number Options List — a list of numeric values.

When you create or edit one of these fields, add choices one at a time using the Add a new option input. You can drag options to reorder them, and edit or delete them at any time.

Bulk-import options from a CSV file

If you have a long list of values to add — for example, a list of customers, regions, or product codes — you can import them all at once instead of typing each one.

Beneath the Add a new option input, click the Import CSV link to open the Import Options dialog.

1. Select your file. Click Choose a file or drag and drop here, then either browse to a .csv file or drag one onto the picker. Only .csv files are accepted.
2. Review the preview. DevStride parses the file and shows a preview table with two columns: Value and Status. Each value is flagged as either New or Duplicate. A value is marked Duplicate when it already exists in the field's option list.
3. Click Import. Only the New values are added to the field's options; any Duplicate values are skipped. The Import button stays disabled until at least one value has been parsed from the file.

How values are read from the file:

• Values can be separated by commas, semicolons, tabs, or new lines — any mix of these works.
• Surrounding whitespace is trimmed, and blank entries are removed.
• For a Number Options List, every value must be numeric. If a value can't be read as a number (for example, Could not parse "abc" as a number), the import is blocked until you correct the file.

2 - Group Into Collections

Create collections by click the green "New" button next to 2 - Group Into Collections. Once you've created your list of collections, drag in custom fields to include them in the collection, drag around to change their order, or drag out to remove them from the collection

You can mark a custom field within a collection as Required. This will prompt the work item to ask you to select a custom field before being able to save a new item.

Sidebar vs Form Field Group

By default, you will be able to place Custom Fields into the Sidebar, found on the right side of the Item Types that you associate this Group with (see next step).

To control where these fields appear in the item panel and drawer for each work type, see Customizing the Item Drawer.

If you have Custom Fields that you are adding specifically to incorporate into an Item Request Form, click the green "+" button within the Group to create the Item Request Form group. See Item Request Forms for more details.

3 - Assign to Item Types

Finally, in order to see your Custom Fields (either in the Sidebar or in the Forms tab of a work item of your Item Type), you need to associate your Custom Field Collection with at least one Item Type. When you create or update a work item of that Item Type, you should now see your Custom Fields in the Sidebar of the work item or under the Forms tab, depending on how you have grouped them.