Parametric Fields

Every organization needs to record something the standard form does not ask for — a cost centre code on a risk, a contract number on a measure, a yes/no flag that only this plant cares about. Parametric fields are how you add those yourself: no development, no upgrade, no waiting.

A parametric field is not a note field. It is a real field with a type, validation and a place on the form, and it can be searched, exported and — for numeric ones — used in a formula.

Defining a field

Parametric fields are defined per record type, from the parametric field definition screen of the module you are in. A field defined on the risk record appears on risks; one defined on the assessment register appears on registers.

• Field key
  The technical name, used in exports and in formulas. Letters, digits and _, starting with a letter or _. It cannot be changed once records hold values, so choose it as deliberately as a column name.

• Title
  What people see beside the field. Entered per language.

• Field type
  See the table below. The type decides the control that is rendered and what may be typed into it.

• Required
  A required field must be filled before the record can be saved.

• Default value
  Written into new records. Leave empty for no default.

• Hint and Placeholder
  Optional. A hint appears under the field; a placeholder appears inside an empty one. Leave either blank and nothing is shown — the field simply has no hint.

• Display order
  The order fields appear in, before you arrange them yourself in the layout designer.

Field types

Type	Rendered as	Notes
Text / Long text	Text box
Number / Decimal	Numeric input	Can be used in formulas
Yes / No	Switch	Can be used in formulas — counts as 1 or 0
Date / Date-time / Time	Date picker
Single select	Dropdown	Can be used in formulas if every option's value is a number or a yes/no
Multi select	Multi-select
Rich text	Editor
Record reference	Lookup	Single or multiple
Person	People picker	Single or multiple

Putting them on the form

A newly defined field is available to the layout designer immediately. Open the layout for the screen you want it on, drag the field into a panel, and save. The same field can sit on several screens, and can be hidden or made read-only per screen.

On view screens — the read-only presentation of a record — a parametric field shows the same way every built-in field does: label above, value beneath, no greyed-out input box.

caution

Save the layout designer only when you mean to change the layout. It writes back the whole layout, so an accidental save on the wrong screen is a change like any other — use the layout's own reset if one gets away from you.

Using them in formulas

Numeric, decimal and yes/no fields — and single-select fields whose every option value is a number or a yes/no — can be named in a risk formula, in brackets, exactly like the built-in variables:

[P]*[F]*[S]*[exposure_factor]

The formula editor's token palette lists them alongside the built-in ones, so you do not have to remember the key. A formula reads the parametric fields of the record it scores, and the score shown live on the assessment screen is worked out the same way the saved score is.

A field left blank is not read as zero. By default a formula that names a blank field refuses to score at all, which is deliberate: "not answered" and "no risk" are different things. If a field is genuinely optional in your scoring, set the formula's blank value default — see the formula definition page for your module (OHS, Asset Risk, Environmental, Information Security).

What to watch for

• A required field applies to every record of that type, including ones created before you defined it. Existing records are not retrospectively invalid, but the next person to save one will have to fill it in.
• Deleting a definition does not delete what was recorded. The values stay on the records; they simply stop being shown. Re-creating the field with the same key brings them back into view.
• Choose the type before people start entering data. Changing a field's type later cannot reinterpret what is already stored.