Administrators can configure advanced form features, such as form focus, form splits, and derived fields.

Allow insert options on task records

The Insert and Insert and Stay options are disabled by default for task records such as incidents and change requests. You can set a system property to show these options for task records.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

Procedure

  1. Navigate to All > System Properties > UI Properties.
  2. Locate the property Allow the use of the "Insert" and "Insert and Stay" options on task derived tables (glide.ui.task.insert).
  3. Select the check box to enable or clear the check box to disable (default) the options for tasks.
  4. Click Save.

Disable first field form focus

By default, forms set focus on the first writable field on the form. An administrator can disable form focus with a system property to make the form more accessible to users who use screenreaders.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

Procedure

  1. Navigate to All > System Properties > UI Properties.
  2. Set the property glide.ui.focus_first_element to false.

Result

With first field focus disabled, the form focuses on the first element on the page instead. Focusing on the first element, instead of the first writable element, helps orient users who use screen readers so they can find all the elements on a form.

Disable the template bar

Administrators can disable the template bar on a table by creating a system property.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

About this task

Creating a table-specific property and setting it to false prevents users from displaying the template bar on a record for the specified table.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to sys_properties.list.
  2. Add a system property with the following settings.
    Property Value
    Name glide.ui.show_template_bar.<TABLENAME>
    Type true | false
    Value false
  3. Click Submit.

Deactivate form submission with the Enter key

By default, when you press the Enter key in a simple one-line text field, a choice list, or a Boolean field, the form is submitted.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

About this task

You can use a system preference to deactivate this feature if you do not want the Enter key to submit the form.

Procedure

  1. From the left navigation pane, select User Administration > User Preferences.
  2. Select the enter_submits_form preference.
  3. Set the value to false.
  4. Click Update.
    The change does not take effect until user preferences are reloaded either at login or when a session is created.

Enable multiple form splits

Form splits enable you to organize fields on a form into columns. Administrators must add a property to enable form splits.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

About this task

Figure 1. Configuration of two form splits
Configuration of two form splits
Figure 2. Example of the form with two form splits
Example of two form splits

When you organize fields in this manner and the user is viewing the form on a small mobile device, the fields within the first split are listed before the fields in the second split. In this example, the Asset tag, State, Serial number, and Substate field are listed before any of the fields below them. You can also create elements that span the form at the top of the form.

Procedure

  1. Enter sys_properties.list in the Navigation filter.
    The entire list of properties in the System Properties [sys_properties] table appears.
  2. If the property does not exist, click New.
  3. Enter the following information.
    OptionDescription
    Name glide.ui.form_multiple_splits
    Description Enable multiple form splits
    Type true | false
    Value true
  4. Click the form context menu icon and select Save.
    The Categories related list appears.
  5. Click Edit and move UI to the Categories List.
  6. Click Save.
    The System Property form reopens and the new property appears in the UI Properties page.

Define required fields

You can specify which form fields are required in forms. This action prevents users with the personalize_form role from removing the field by configuring the form layout.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

The Required Form Fields plugin must be active.

About this task

If present on a form, only an administrator can remove required fields. When you configure a form, required fields appear in a gray color and have a tooltip indicating they are required. Required fields are defined in the Required Form Fields [sys_ui_element_required] table.

The expected (although not the only) use case for this feature is as part of a delegated administration scheme. For example, you can grant branch offices the rights to modify forms by granting the personalize_form role, but not allow them to remove certain fields which are critical to overall business processing.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to sys_properties.list.
  2. Locate the property named glide.ui.form.enforce_required_fields and make sure it is set to true.
  3. Navigate to System UI > Required Form Fields.
  4. Click New.
  5. Select the table and field, and then select the Required check box.
    The following example sets the Short description field on the Incident form to be required.
    Required form field
    If you decide later that you do not want to make the field required, clear the Required checkbox. This action is preferable to deleting the record.
  6. Click Submit.

Result

If the table specified has extension tables, then the Required Form Field record applies to forms of all extended tables. For example, if an administrator specifies that the Short description field is required for the Task table, then this configuration applies to the Incident form, Change Request form, Problem form, and so on.

An extended table can override the Required Form Field rule of its base table. For example, if the Short description field is required for the Task table, but not required for the Incident table, it is required for all Task tables except Incident.

Control the label type for derived fields

You can configure the type of label that appears for derived fields.

Before you begin

Role required: admin

About this task

An example would be displaying the email address for the caller when looking at an incident record. The email address is not stored in the Incident table, but is obtained by following the caller reference from the incident to the User table. You control the label type by setting a system property. For example, the field label for an incident email address can be either of the following strings.

  • Caller Email, which represents the complete label to uniquely identify this field as the email from the caller user record. If you display the email address for the person the ticket is assigned to, its label would be Assigned to Email.
  • Email which is the label for the target field. This label is not unique on the form if, for example, you are also displaying the email address of the person assigned to the incident. However, usually the placement of the field on the form makes it clear what the field represents.
Figure 3. Available table fields
Available fields

Choose the Caller field and click the expander icon.
Figure 4. Caller fields
Caller fields

Select the available fields associated with the Caller field.

Procedure

  1. Navigate to All > System Properties > System.
  2. Locate the Use short labels for all fields. For example, if a form contains the caller's email address, use the "Email" label rather than the full label of "Caller Email" (glide.short.labels) property.
    The default value is true, meaning that the short label is displayed in all forms.
  3. If you want to display the complete label in forms, clear the check box.
  4. Click Save.