Table of contents:

• Introduction
• How to set up?
• Field types
• How to report?
• Feedback

Custom fields in 7pace Timetracker for monday.com

If you need to record more details with your time entries, 7pace has your back. Define your own toggles and dropdowns and let people fill these in when adding or editing their time. A typical use case for this feature would be to track if the recorded hours are billable or not, but the possibilities are endless!

How to set up?

Navigate to Apps marketplace:

Type '7pace Timetracker' and open the app detail:

Navigate to 'Settings' tab and open 'Fields' settings:

Create a new field

Create new fields and immediately see how your users are going to see them in the preview of Add Time Dialogue.

ℹ️  When a new custom toggle is defined, existing time entries are not affected, which means that only newly created or edited time entries will contain the custom field value.

 

Enable field

All new fields are 'Enabled' by default, it means that after you save the field, users can immediately start filling the field value when entering or updating their time.

If you 'Disable' the field, the values of the field already stored on worklogs (if any) will remain present, but users will no longer be able to add or edit the value of the field when entering or updating their time entries.

Set if a field is mandatory

Define if a field is mandatory by moving the field above or below the 'mandatory' line. When entering time, only mandatory fields will be shown by default to users; optional fields are shown only upon expanding the list of all fields.

 

ℹ️  Mandatory fields limit You can set up to 3 mandatory fields, the rest of the fields needs to be optional. We limit the number of fields like this because we want to keep time filling easy and quick for users. In total, there can be up to 10 custom fields - if you run out of the limit, please delete some unused fields before adding a new one.

 

Delete a field if no longer needed

If you created a custom field by mistake, or if you no longer need a field, you can delete it by clicking on the 'Delete field' button. Please be aware then deleting a field will also delete the values of this field stored on existing worklogs (if any). 

 

Add a description to a custom field 

You can add a description to your custom fields to provide users with clear instructions on how to use it. This helps ensure that the custom field is utilized correctly and effectively.

 

Field types

There are multiple field types available. If you're missing a field type, we encourage you to submit your idea using our feature portal.

Custom toggles

Custom toggles can be only set to 'On' or 'Off' (or 'True' or 'False', if you wish). They are great for indicating for example:

• Billable Hours,
• Overtime,
• PTO,
• and more.

Toggles can be created by clicking on the 'Create new field' button and selecting 'Toggle'. Once you create a field, its type cannot be changed anymore.

Choose the desired default value according to your needs. For example, if majority of time you track in the company are billable hours and you only want users to actively indicate hours that are not billable, select the default value of the Billable toggle to 'Off'. 

The default value is used and stored by default - it means that:

• When recording a new time entry, the default value of the toggle is stored with the worklog unless a user actively changes the value to a non-default one.
• When editing a time entry created before the toggle was in use, the value of the dropdown remains 'not set' until a user edits the time entry. Once they do edit, the same logic as in the previous bullet point is applied.
• In the case of an existing time entry for which the toggle value is already stored, the actual toggle value is displayed when editing the time entry, no matter what the default toggle value is.

 

Custom dropdowns

Custom dropdowns are great when you need to record additional information where users need to select from more than two options, such as:

• Time Category (Holiday, Business trip, Regular, Overtime, ...)
• Activity Type (Design, Meetings, Testing, Development...)
• and others.

 

Please find our recommendation of how to set up custom dropdowns, below.

 

Custom dropdown, or a monday.com column?

Don't create custom dropdowns for information that can be stored on the level of monday.com item. For example, if an item can be unequivocally assigned to a Client, don't enforce users to choose a Client when entering their time.
The rule of thumb here is: if all time entries are expected to have the same value of an attribute for one item, the attribute should be kept on item level in monday.com board, not in time tracking. If the value of an attribute is expected to vary for one item, then it's a good candidate for a custom dropdown in time tracking.

Keep the number of options reasonable

You can set up to 99 options for every custom dropdown, but we recommend keeping the number of options much lower - not much more than 10.

Make it easy for users to find the correct option

• Reorder the fields in the order most intuitive for your users using the drag and drop area. Alphabetical order is a good example of typical ordering expected by users.

  

• Use different colours to make navigation among options easier.
  
  

Avoid breaking changes if possible

When renaming existing options of a dropdown, be aware that the new option names will be reflected on worklogs where this option was selected in the past. E.g. if you rename an option 'Development' to 'Testing', worklogs that previously had the value 'Testing' stored on them will show the value 'Development'. 

 

Validations

Here's the list of current validations:

• Two dropdowns cannot share the same name. It would be confusing to users, and it would also cause trouble when exporting data to a spreadsheet.
• Names of options in one dropdown have to be unique. It would be unclear to users what option to choose.
• Options that are already in use for some worklogs cannot be deleted. We may add an option to disable options in the future, but it is not available now.

 

Where to see values of custom fields

Mandatory custom fields are displayed in Weekly cards and various other places. Non-mandatory custom fields are usually displayed in tooltips.

 

What about existing time entries?

Historical time entries that existed before a new custom fields were added will not have any value set for these fields. If you edit such existing worklogs:

• Default values of custom toggles will be saved with a time entry.
• Custom dropdowns will remain empty unless you select a value.

Note that value selection of mandatory dropdowns is not enforced for historical worklogs, but if you duplicate historical worklogs in Weekly or in Timesheet, the system will ask you to fill in values of mandatory fields for the duplicated worklogs.

 

How to report?

Navigate to the settings icon next to the 'Export' button, and add the fields you'd like to see in Times Explorer by selecting the respective checkboxes. Mandatory fields are selected and displayed by default.

Custom fields that are selected are also a part of the export to a spreadsheet. 

 

Pro Tip:

Group by custom field values by clicking on a 'Group by' button.

 

Copy to board

If you need to see custom fields in the results of Copy to board, navigate to the 'Copy to board' article.

 

Feedback

Are you missing something? What would make this feature more useful to you? Share your feedback on our Feature portal, or contact our Product team directly by booking a call with us.