Create and edit fields

Applies To: Dynamics 365 (online), Dynamics 365 (on-premises), Dynamics CRM 2016, Dynamics CRM Online

In Microsoft Dynamics 365, fields define the individual data items that can be used to store data in an entity. Fields are sometimes called attributes by developers. You can use the customization tools in the solution explorer to edit system fields that allow customization, or to create, edit, or delete custom entities.

In This Topic

Create and edit fields

Types of fields

Image fields

Delete fields

Set managed properties for fields

Create and edit fields

Before you create a custom field, evaluate whether using an existing field meets your requirements. More information:  Create new metadata or use existing metadata

Part of the name of any custom field you create is the customization prefix. This is set based on the solution publisher for the solution you’re working in. If you care about the customization prefix, make sure that you are working in an unmanaged solution or the default solution where the customization prefix is the one you want for this entity. For information about how to change the customization prefix, see Solution publisher.

You can access fields in the application in several ways:

• From the solution explorer you can expand the entity and choose the Fields node. From the list of fields, click New to create a new field or double-click any of the fields on the list to edit them.

• Expand the entity and choose the Forms node. Open a form in the form editor and below the Field Explorer click New Field to create a new field. For any field already added to the form you can double-click the field to display the Field Properties. On the Details tab, click Edit.

  • Another way to go to the form editor is to use the Form command on the command bar for any entity record.

• If you use the metadata browser tool, use the Entity Metadata Browser page to view details about a specific entity, and then click the Attributes button. If a field is editable, you can click the Edit Attribute button to edit the field. More information:  Use the metadata browser

All fields have the following properties:

Any of the fields that provide direct text input have an IME Mode. The input method editor (IME) is used for East Asian languages like Japanese. IMEs allow the user to enter the thousands of different characters used in East Asian written languages using a standard 101-key keyboard.

Create or edit entity fields

Create new fields to capture data when existing system entities don’t have fields that meet your requirements. After you create new fields, be sure to include them on the forms and views for the entity so that they are available from the relevant Microsoft Dynamics 365 user interface. You can also add the new fields to reports with the following restrictions:

• Some system entities or custom entities that are included in a managed solution may not allow you to add new fields.

• Some system fields or custom fields that are included in a managed solution may not allow you to edit them.

• The default solution is a special unmanaged solution which shows you all solution components from any managed or unmanaged solutions. You can’t edit ANYTHING in the context of a managed solution. But all the things you find there are in your default solution anyway, so you don’t need to.

1. Make sure you have the System Administrator security role or equivalent permissions in Microsoft Dynamics 365. 

2. Go to Settings > Customizations.

3. Click Customize the System.

4. Under Components, expand Entities, and then expand the entity you want.

5. Select Fields.

   • To add a new field, on the Actions toolbar, select New, and enter a Display Name to generate the Name.

     - OR -

   • To edit one or more fields, select the field or fields (using the Shift key) you want to modify and then on the Actions toolbar, select Edit. You can make changes to the following fields:

     • For Field Requirement, select whether it’s optional, recommended, or required.

     • In Searchable, select whether to include this field in the list of fields shown in Advanced Find for this entity and also in the field available for customizing the find columns in the Quick Find view and the Lookup view.

     • For Field Security, enable or disable the feature for this field.

     • For Auditing, enable or disable the feature for this field.

   Note

   When you select multiple fields to edit, the Edit Multiple Fields dialog appears. You can edit Field Requirement, Searchable, and Auditing.

6. For new fields, under Type, enter the required information for the specified type. For existing fields, you cannot modify the type, but you can modify the settings for the Types of fields.

7. Select the Field type, Format, and Maximum length of the field.

8. Select the IME mode for this attribute.

   Note

   This specifies whether the active state of an input method editor (IME) is enabled. An IME lets you enter and edit Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters. IMEs can be in an active or inactive state. The active state accepts Chinese, Japanese, or Korean characters. The inactive state behaves like a regular keyboard and uses a limited set of characters.

9. For a new field, be sure to add a Description of the field – this provides instructions to your users on how to use the new field.

10. Click Save and Close.

11. Publish your customization.

    • To publish your changes for one entity, under Components, select Entities, and then the entity that you made changes to. On the Actions toolbar, select Publish.

    • To publish all changes you have made to multiple entities or components, on the Actions toolbar, select Publish All Customizations.

Types of fields

The following table contains information about the field types available in Microsoft Dynamics 365.

The following table contains information about the field data types.

Customer field

In previous releases, several out-of-the-box entities in Dynamics 365, such as the Case, Lead, and Opportunity entities, included a special kind of lookup field that represented a customer. Using this lookup field you could choose between two entities: Account or Contact. With this new capability, you can add the Customer field to any system or custom entity. You can use the Customer field in more entities to track the customer's information in the same way you've used the Customer field in the Case, Lead, and Opportunity entities.

Let's look at the following business scenario. Your company is an insurance provider. You use Dynamics 365 to manage your customer interactions and standardize business processes. It’s important for you to know if a recipient of policies or claims is an individual or a company. To address this business requirement, you can create two custom entities: Policies and Claims. To get and track the customer information you want, add the Customer lookup field to the Policies entity and the Claims entity, by using the new Customer field capability.

Single line of text format options

The following table provides information about the format options for single line of text fields.

Whole number format options

The following table provides information about the format options for whole number fields.

Using the right type of number

When choosing the correct type of number field to use, the choice to use a Whole Number or Currency type should be pretty straightforward. The choice between using Floating Point or Decimal numbers requires more thought.

Decimal numbers are stored in the database exactly as specified. Floating point numbers store an extremely close approximation of the value. Why choose extremely close approximation when you can have the exact value? The answer is that you get different system performance.

Use decimals when you need to provide reports that require very accurate calculations, or if you typically use queries that look for values that are equal or not equal to another value.

Use floating point numbers when you store data that represents fractions or values that you will typically query comparing to another value using greater than or less than operators. In most cases, the difference between decimal and float isn’t noticeable. Unless you require the most accurate possible calculations, floating point numbers should work for you.

Using currency fields

Currency fields allow for an organization to configure multiple currencies that can be used for records in the organization. When organizations have multiple currencies, they typically want to be able to perform calculations to provide values using their base currency. When you add a currency field to an entity that has no other currency fields, two additional fields are added:

• A lookup field called Currency that you can set to any active currency configured for your organization. You can configure multiple active currencies for your organization in Settings > Business Management > Currencies. There you can specify the currency and an exchange rate with the base currency set for your organization. If you have multiple active currencies, you can add the currency field to the form and allow people to specify which currency should be applied to money values for this record. This will change the currency symbol that is shown for the currency fields in the form.

  Individuals can also change their personal options to select a default currency for the records they create.

• A decimal field called Exchange Rate that provides the exchange rate for a selected currency associated with the entity with respect to the base currency. If this field is added to the form, people can see the value, but they can’t edit it. The exchange rate is stored with the currency.

For each currency field you add, another currency field is added with the prefix “_Base” on the name. This field stores the calculation of the value of the currency field you added and the base currency. Again, if this field is added to the form, it can’t be edited.

When you configure a currency field you can choose the precision value. There are essentially three options as shown in the following table.

Different types of lookups

When you create a new lookup field you are creating a new Many-to-One (N:1) entity relationship between the entity you’re working with and the Target Record Type defined for the lookup. There are additional configuration options for this relationship that are described in Create and edit entity relationships. But all custom lookups can only allow for a reference to a single record for a single target record type.

However, you should be aware that not every lookup behaves this way. There are several different types of system lookups as shown here.

Image fields

Use image fields to display a single image per record in the application. Each entity can have one image field. You can add an image field to custom entities but not to system entities. The following system entities have an image field. Those marked with an asterisk are enabled by default.

Even though an entity has an image field, displaying that image in the application requires an additional step. In the entity definition the Primary Image field values are either [None] or Entity Image. Click Entity Image to display the image in the application. More information:  Create and edit entities

When image display is enabled for an entity, any records that don’t have an image will display a placeholder image. For example, the Lead entity:

People can choose the default image to upload a picture from their computer. Images must be less than 5120 KB and must one of the following formats:

• jpg

• jpeg

• gif

• tif

• tiff

• bmp

• png

When the image is uploaded, it will be converted to a .jpg format and all downloaded images will also use this format. If an animated .gif is uploaded, only the first frame is saved.

When an image is uploaded, it will be resized to a maximum size of 144 pixels by 144 pixels. People should resize or crop the images before they upload them so that they will display well using this size. All images are cropped to be square. If both sides of an image are smaller than 144 pixels, the image will be cropped to be a square with the dimensions of the smaller side.

Delete fields

As someone with the system administrator security role, you can delete any custom fields that aren’t part of a managed solution. When you delete fields, any data stored in the fields is lost. The only way to recover data from a field that was deleted is to restore the database from a point before the field was deleted.

Before you can delete a custom entity, you must remove any dependencies that may exist in other solution components. Open the field and use the Show Dependencies button in the menu bar to view any Dependent Components. For example, if the field is used in a form or view, you must first, remove references to the field in those solution components.

If you delete a lookup field, the 1:N entity relationship for it will automatically be deleted.

Set managed properties for fields

Managed properties only apply when you include fields in a managed solution and import the solution into another organization. These settings allow a solution developer to have some control over the level of customization that people who install their managed solution can have when they customize this field. To set managed properties for a field, click Managed Properties on the menu bar.

The Can be customized option controls all the other options. If this option is False, none of the other settings apply. When it is True, you can specify the other customization options.

If the field is customizable, you set the following options to True or False.

• Display name can be modified

• Can change requirement level

• Can change Additional Properties

These options are self-explanatory. If you set all the individual options to False, you might as well set Can be customized to False.

See Also

Create and edit metadata
Create and edit entities
Create and edit entity relationships
Create and edit global option sets
Default status and status reason values
Edit status reason transitions
Set custom icon for custom case origin
Define rollup fields
Define calculated fields
Behavior and format of the date and time field
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