Custom fields for everything. EVERYTHING. :) We have retail store associates submitting requests to a design team, so a custom field on each user "calculates" their location code for billing purposes. All of our cross-department billing is done with custom fields, populated from the request:
One form is visible only to the requestor, with extra instruction to help them fill out the form properly. One key field is product selection .
A second form is visible only to the work team, using the same key fields (to display production instructions), but cutting out all of the requestor supporting fields. The product selection and additional design options (add a mail merge, recreate a logo) are verified by the work team to ensure correct (static) charges.
A third form is visible to managers and above with billing calculations based on the selections in the first + second forms, as well as pulling in the location code from the Entered By ID.
There are a few instances where product selection (which is the base of every cost calculation) is not needed, because the request type / form dictates the base cost instead. So, our calculations look for that first and product selection second.
Custom fields absolutely make this an incredibly flexible system. I would LOVE to have the Custom Forms "tab" be a re-namable option in the system, OR, even better, visible in other locations/tabs, like dashboards . We practically ignore the Overview, and go right to Custom Forms for every single item we process. Jennifer Allen Staples, Inc.