Best Practices for Shared Custom Form Fields?

[Mohini__Mini_Si]

Hi Community! We are starting to run into an issue with our custom forms and the fields that are shared between different custom forms. Our issue is that users who have Admin access to Custom Form can make changes to custom fields that are being shared across multiple custom forms. This is an issue because we have several different units in the system who have different custom forms with similar fields. When a field is pulled from the field library, I have found that the user is not being notified when that field is being shared on another custom form. Does anyone have best practices to handle this? Alternatively, any advise on how to better setup custom form permissions? Thank you! Mohini (Mini) Sinha Excelsior College

[Doug_Den_Hoed__AtAppStore]

HI Mini, In order of Draconian Measuredness, I'd suggest: (re)training your SysAdmins on the ramifications of modifying existing custom parameters (eg stuff could break) (re)enforce the house rules on who ought to be changing parms, and when a coordinated email/meeting is necessary (re)word te descriptions of the parameters to help clarify rheir scope and intention (re)consider adding a prefix on all parameters to establish their scope and in turn, SysAdmin ownership (re)strict SysAdmin access to avoid these business interruptions and instead require parameter changes to a formal process (Re)gaurds, Doug Doug Den Hoed - AtAppStore Got Skills? Lend a hand! https://community.workfront.com/participate/unanswered-threads

[pco88]

Although it's not happened to our instance yet (knock on wood!), it's something we do worry about as more departments join the application. Basically, we let all players (admin) know that in no circumstances should they change anything that is not local to them and reiterate and strongly imply the apocalypse that can happen if they do this. All of our custom form do not share fields with other teams which is what I would suggest if you do not do that already. So if they are changing things within the custom form, any fields that they want to modify in there is only local to them. We also modify forms first on the preview site. You can also ask them to search for the field in the fields tab and see what custom forms it's going to touch. Regards. Polly Co

[MichaelLe]

We were running into that situation as well... especially with certain admins (cough.. cough...). We actually decided to reduce the number of admins which increased the work load but in the end gave us tighter controls. Michael Lebowitz Marketing Analyst Michael.Lebowitz@guidewellconnect.com T 904-436-4240 | M 904-200-1364 Fax 904-565-6156 4800 Deerwood Campus Pkwy DCC 800-4-272 Jacksonville, FL 32246

[VincentGo]

Our general practice is to label our fields for each tenant. So if you were department A, the field would be called "A - Report Type". This, of course, is less than ideal, especially for outward facing forms. We also have a problem where we have generic field names (ex. "Type" "Report Type" "Category") that one tenant has already claimed, so we have to get creative and come up with a variation because we have different field values that are needed. There's a great idea on the Idea Exchange to redesign the custom fields so they have different names in the backend vs frontend. That way, you could have multiple fields with the same "literal" name (Type, Report Type), but different backend names. Currently, the literal is the same as the backend name. https://support.workfront.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/115006012627-Have-separate-Field-API-Names-vs... Vincent Goodwin The Capital Group Companies

[JohnSe1]

Two big suggestions: 1) Work with your Workfront team to best understand and build out a governess process within your company. Which should include any user with access to editing custom forms. < 2) Head on over to the Idea Exchange and upvote this person's suggestion. See link...