I absolutely love any software that allows me to make Custom Changes, and Dynamics is as flexible and customizable as they come. This is likely the reason that you purchased Curo365 in the first place, as it afforded you the hope of a brighter, more ‘fit’ solution for tomorrow. But setting up some of the coolest features also comes with it some of the greatest frustrations. Below is a Guide filled to the brim with information on Creating and Placing Fields, but it’s difficult to relay in text just how much goes into this portion of the system.

If you find yourself stuck, I HIGHLY recommend clicking on the Video above and letting me talk you through it the first time.

Regardless, you’ll likely need to do this multiple times before you’re good at it, and (at least for the first few tries) you’ll probably need to work on the same Field multiple times before it looks the way that you want it to, but that’s ok! Trial, error and repetition are the names of these games, so follow the Guide below and, as long as you’re not REMOVING anything (only adding things or moving things around), you shouldn’t be able to break anything! Be bold, and go forth into the seedy underbelly of Dynamics!

Before we click a thing, be sure that you can articulate what you’re wanting to add in a single Sentence. This Sentence will help you click the right buttons in the following steps. An example Sentence would be:

“I want to add an Optional Dropdown Menu to the Contacts Entity, under the existing Name Field, for recording the Client’s Hair Color that includes options for Brown, Black, Blond, Gray, Red and Other.”

Mapping out a Sentence for what we want tells us:

What Entity/Form we’re putting the Field in – Contacts

Where in the Entity/Form – Under the existing Name Field

What kind of Field it is – A Dropdown (Option Set)

If it’s a Required or Optional Field - Optional

What our Options will be – Brown, Black, Blond, Gray, Red and Other

Once you have your Sentence, let’s go ahead and get into the Interface that will allow us to create Fields!

First, we need to get into the Advanced Settings, so click the Cog on the top right, and then choose Advanced Settings.

From here, Click the Settings dropdown at the top and choose Customizations.

Finally, choose Customize the System.

Here, you’ll see a new Window pop out that looks a little older in its presentation. This is the backside of everything that you’re used to seeing in your day-to-day Curo experience and contains options and interfacing for every Entity and Field in your Curo365 setup.

On the left side, you’ll see a long set of options, but the top one, Entities, is the one that we’re worried about. Click the Small Arrow to the left of Entities to expand the menu and see all available Entities underneath.

Then scroll down until you find the Entity in which you’re wanting to put your new Field. In the case of our Sentence above, we’re going to put our Field in the Contact Entity.

Just as above, click the Small Arrow to expand the Contact Entity and find its various options. Before we can place the Field in a Form, we’ll need create it, so we’ll start by clicking Fields.

This brings us to a list of every Field created in your Curo365 interface, and if you ever need to manipulate these for any reason, they can all be found here. But since we’re interested in adding something entirely New, go ahead and click the New option at the top of this small window.

Now we see the Interface below. I’ve broken this window into three pictures below and will explain the various pieces as I’ve denoted them with Numbers. In the top section, we have:

1 – The Display Name. This is the Name that will appear in the actual Form when you look at it. Pretty straight-forward, but it is not to be confused with;

2 – The Field Code (or Field Name or Schema (depending on what is referring to it)). This Field will auto-populate based on what you filled out in the Display Name, but can be changed if you prefer it to read differently. Best practice is to leave it as is, however.

3 – Field Requirement. This denotes whether this Field is Required to contain data before the Form can be Saved. Set to Optional, it is just that; Optional. But it can also be set to Business Recommended, which will be denoted by a Blue Cross on the active Form, or Business Required, which will have a Red Asterisk by it. When set to Required, data MUST be filled in before it can be Saved.

4 – Searchable. I can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t want to leave this as Yes, but ultimately, this option means that your Field will come up in Searches and Advanced Finds.

The second portion contains three easy-to-understand options:

1 – Field Security. ALWAYS leave this on Disable unless you’re a seasoned Dynamics Developer and you know what this option really means.

2 – Auditing. This is usually best left at Enable. It means that, if your Firm uses Auditing to see which Fields were changed when and by whom, then this Field will be included in that Audit.

3 – Description. In case your Field is a little esoteric, it’s nice to add a Description of its use for anyone coming after you. Nice, but not required.

The final portion contains our Data Types. This is where we’ll choose what kind of Data will be accepted into this Field, but you can only choose one. I’ve pointed out 6 (+1) of the most commonly used Data Types below, but again, feel free to experiment. If you see a Data Type below and you’d like to better understand its function, simply create one and see how it behaves in an active Form!

1 – Single Line of Text. A line that allows any text to be written in it, but only shows a single line.

2 – Multiple Lines of Text. A text box, allowing whatever you want written in a larger format as opposed to a single line.

3 – Whole Numbers. Any non-decimal number. It should also round if you put the decimal number in.

4 – Decimal Numbers. Decimal numbers!

5 – Currency. Allowing for various money types. Currency symbol can also be selected if you choose this option.

6 – Date and Time. Allows to track a date and time!

In the event that you choose an Option Set, you’ll also have to enter what the options will be in the Dropdown.

1 – You chose Option Set.

2 – The Default Option to which you’d like this Dropdown to show when no Option has yet to be selected.

3 – The box showing all of your currently created Options.

4 – A Plus Sign for adding new options.

5 – An Edit Box to change the Label of each Option. Simply Click/Highlight an Option on the left and change its info on the right.

I’d like to point out one more Field Type before we settle on Option Set and look at what we need to do there, and that’ll be the Lookup Type. The Lookup Field Type is used to look for other Entities or Record Types, and when you choose this option, you’ll also have to choose a Target Record. So for example, if you were creating a Field for Great Uncle and you didn’t want the answer to simply be a Name in a Text Line, but actually a full Contact, you’d create a Lookup Field and choose Contact as your Target Record Type. You’ll naturally find uses for this Field Type as you go, so don’t forget that it’s here!

I’ve gone ahead and filled out our Field for this example. We named it Hair Color and chose to leave it Optional. Then we set the Data Type to Option Set, left the Default Value to show nothing, and filled in our Options with all of our Hair Colors.

Once you’re done, click Save and Close, and now we’re ready to use our new Field!

Now that we’ve created the Field, we have to make sure that it appears on our Form (the actual interface that you usually see on the Curo365 side), so let’s open that Form now. In the same area on the left where we chose Fields earlier, you’ll also see an option for Forms. Click that to see a list of available Forms.

This part can be a little confusing, as more than one Form may look like it fits the bill for what you want. A good rule to start with is to look at:

1 – The Name of the Form. If it looks like what would expect, you’re probably on the right track.

2 – See if it shows Main or Quick Create (depending on which form to which you’d like to add the Field) in this column.

3 – Finally, Managed is usually what you want, UNLESS you have an Unmanaged Option where the Name of the Form includes your Firm Name. In those cases, that’s probably the one you want, but it’s all part of the trial and error.

Once you select a Form, you’ll see the Form window pop up and a list/grid of all the Fields currently on the Form. You can look back at the Entity in Curo365 to see a relationship between this Form and what you’re used to seeing, and I do this in the Video above, as well.

Now we need to find the Field that we created. On the right side, you’ll see long menu of Fields that, by default (using the indicated Checkmark below) will only show you Fields that are not already in use. Since the Field that you’re using is likely a new Field and, therefore, CANNOT already be in use, you can leave that checked and scroll down until you find, in alphabetical order, the name of the Field that you just created.

Once you find the Field that created, simply Click it and Drag it into the form where you want it to appear on the screen.

And now that we’re able to see our shiny new Field in our Form, as shown below, you can Save, then Publish, and once the Publishing message has gone away, you can choose Save and Close to see everything in action!

Now head back to your normal Curo365 interface and find the Entity on which you expect to see the new Field. Refresh the page and look where you expect to see it! My example below has our Hair Color Field, right where we want it!

NOTE - In the event that you don’t see what you wanted, there are a couple of possibilities:

1 – You need to do a Hard Refresh by holding down CTRL and pressing F5. TRY THIS FIRST.

2 – If you still don’t see your Field, you probably put it on the wrong Form. This can be easy to do if it’s your first time. Go back to the interface from many steps above and choose a different Form to add it to. Save, Publish, Refresh and check again!

Otherwise, that’s it! This is how you can add Fields in Curo365. It’s VERY daunting the first few times you try to do this on your own, but you’ll get into the swing of things after a few failed attempts. And arming yourself with this knowledge early will ensure that, in the future, your Curo365 can be EXACTLY what you want it to be, EXACTLY when you want it!

Thanks for reading, and use the Chat Button down on the bottom right to reach out if you need assistance with this or anything else!