Notification Templates: Custom Fields

Applicable System Roles

• Human Resources
• Recruiting Administrator
• Administrator

Prerequisites

Creating Notifications, Categories for Notifications

Contents

Add a Custom Field

Field Display Options

Important Tips/Notes

Add a Custom Field

1. Navigate to Notifications / Templates 

Reference instructions in "Create Notification Details" in Creating Notifications if you are starting a new Notification Template to include custom fields. 

2. Select the template by clicking the magnifying glass and the lower half of your screen will display the template's related tabs

3. Click the Custom Fields tab:

   

4. Click "New Field"

   

   *For Custom Fields that are shared throughout multiple Notification Templates, please see: Shared Custom Fields

5. The following pop-up window, "Mail Merge Custom Field Management" will display:

   

   All field types will appear as fields to be selected in Template Builder when creating the form and are populated by the user when the form is selected. 

    

6. Enter the necessary information for your custom field - This should include information that cannot be pulled from SchoolFront such as "Board Action Date"
7. Field Name (Required): Enter a searchable name for the grid

Please Note: 

Custom Fields cannot have duplicate names

If a special character is used within the Custom Field name, it will cause an error and prevent the form from working

1. Select Custom Field Type (drop-down)
2. Display Order: Order it will appear in when the form is selected
3. Custom Field Display Name (Required): This is the custom field name that will display when the user selects this form
4. Custom Field Description: This will provide the user with a ? to view this
5. Default Value of the custom field
6. Custom List Items: Available when the custom field type is either Checkbox List, Custom List/Drop-down, Radio Buttons

Field Display Options

Submit (Drop-down): Editable, Editable Required, Hidden, Read-Only

All Approvals: Editable, Editable Required, Hidden, Read-Only

Display Controller Field: Allows for certain custom fields to only be visible based on prior fields answer

• Initial question must be a Custom List / Dropdown
• Display Controller Field is the name of the question that this question will be dependent on

Field Value: the answer (Option in the dropdown) from the initial question that will make the current question appear when selected.

Example: If we wanted all people who own a red truck to tell us the manufacturer, the initial question would be "What color is your truck" where we would provide a dropdown of "Blue, Red, Green". When setting up the manufacturer field, we would set the "What color is your truck" question as the Display Controller Field and set "Red" to the Field Value. ONLY when an end user selects that their truck is red, would they be asked what the manufacturer is.

14. Click Save to complete or Save and Add Another to add more custom fields and repeat steps 4-14 for all custom fields needed in the template (Clicking Cancel will back out of the window and not save your information). 

15. In the Details tab, click Notification Builder:

    

16.  The Template Builder pop-up will display:

17. Your custom field will be listed within the "Notification Markers" menu selection of the builder. Complete your notification body in the space provided using the formatting and standard word processing tools provided in the Template Builder. Please reference Creating Notifications for detailed instructions. 

    

18. Once completed, click "Save

Important Tips/Notes

To add user information to the notification using mail-merge capability, click the Notification Markers menu and select a field. When the notification is sent, that field placeholder will be updated with information specific to the person that the notification is being sent to.

Example: If you insert " Dear --Recipient First Name--: into your template, when you send the notification to Mr. James George, Mr. Dean Agostini, and Mrs. Kathleen Karafonda, the notification they receive will actually read "Dear James" and "Dear Dean" and "Dear Kathleen."

• The fields offered in the Notification Markers menu are dependent on the Category Type you specified, such as "Human Resources Employees". The fields listed near the top are the custom fields you created on the Custom Fields tab.

  

Warning: If you add a notification marker that is specific to the recipient, and you send the notification to that user and their associated data is not defined/missing in SchoolFront, the placeholder for that personalized information will be BLANK 

For example, if you insert --Recipient Cell Phone--. The actual cell phone number of the recipient would be inserted in the notification each recipient receives, but if they do not have a cell phone number on record in SchoolFront, it would be blank and might not make sense.