Custom Lists
The custom lists area lets you create lists of items to populate drop-down menus on your forms.
- For example, if you add a custom field called ‘Salutation’ to the new user (contact information) form, then your list would include items like ‘Mr’, ‘Mrs’, ‘Ms’, ‘Senor’, ‘Senora’, etc.
- Once saved, you can select your new list in the ‘Type’ column of the form edit screen. For example:
- Click ‘Admin Panel’ > ‘Manage’ > ‘Forms’
- Click on the ‘Contact Information’ form
- Click ‘Add new field’. Type ‘Salutation’ as the label
- You can select your custom list from the ‘Type’ drop-down:
- You can also setup multi-level lists with a 'parent-child' structure. The contents of the child list dynamically changes depending on the item chosen in the parent list.
Open the 'Custom Lists' interface
- Open the admin panel (see the last link on the left)
- Click 'Manage' > 'Lists'
- List Name: List label. Choose a label which describes the type of items in the list.
- Parent List: If this is a child list then this column shows the name of the parent list. Please note that one parent list can have only one child list. A child list can be a parent of the next level child list.
- Created: Date and time on which the list was added
- Last Updated: Date and time the list was most recently edited.
Click a column header to sort items in ascending/descending order of entries in that column.
- Open the admin panel (see the last link on the left)
- Click 'Manage' > 'Lists'
- Click
'Add New Custom List':
Follow these steps to create your list:
Open the 'Definition' tab in the new list screen:
- Name: Create label for the list. This should describe the items in the list itself. For example, if you add a field called ‘What is your operating system?’ to your new ticket form, then you could enter ‘OS’ as the name of the list.
- Plural Name: Enter the term to describe multiple instances of the list. For example, if your list is called ‘Country’, then the plural is ‘Countries’. The plural form is shown in the 'Type' column of the field at ‘Admin Panel’ > ‘Manage’ > ‘Forms’. If you leave this field blank, Service Desk will simply add an ‘s’ on the end of the name.
- Sort Order: Choose how list items should be shown in the list (alphabetical, reverse alphabetical, or sorted manually). The options selected here will be applied to the items in the 'Items' tab.
- Internal Notes: Add any comments about the list. Comments are only visible to staff and admins.
Click 'Add List' to save the list.
Step 2 - Add items to the list
-
Click the 'Items' tab.
Type each
item you want in the list on a separate row. These are the options
you will present in the drop-down menu.
For example, if your list is called ‘Operating System’, then your items could be ‘Windows 10’, ‘Windows 8/8.1’, ‘Ubuntu’, ‘Debian’, ‘iOS’, ‘Android’ etc.
- Value - Enter the label of the item. This is what the user sees in the list.
- Extra - Abbreviations and such.
- Disabled - Enable or disable the item. Disabled items are not shown in the drop-down, but can be quickly re-enabled later.
- Delete - Remove the item.
Click
'Add New Item' if you want more than four items in the list.
Click 'Save Changes'. The 'Disabled' and 'Delete' check-boxes become active after you save the list.
You can finish at this point if required.
The custom
list is available for selection in the ‘Type’ column of the forms
at ‘Admin Panel’ > ‘Manage’ > ‘Forms’.
Steps 3 - 5 are optional, allowing you to add tool-tips to your custom list and to create child lists.
Step 3 - Define item properties (optional)
- The 'Properties' tab lets you add more details about the items in your list. Staff and users can see this information when they place their mouse over the item.
- For example, say you add a custom field, ‘Printer Model’, to your ‘Ticket Details’ form. You then create a custom list which consists of various printer models.
- You could add 4 items in the ‘Properties’ tab - 'Technology', 'Monochrome Speed', 'Color Speed' and 'Maximum Resolution'. You can then define values for the 4 properties for each printer model.
- Users select the model they are having problems with when they create their ticket. Staff and users can then see the additional model info in the ticket details screen:
Example process:
- Populate the ‘Definition’ and ‘Items’ tabs as explained in steps 1 and 2
- Click the ‘Properties’ tab.
- Create your properties. In our example, 'Technology', 'Monochrome Speed', 'Color Speed' and 'Maximum Resolution'.
- Leave the ‘Type’ as ‘Short Answer’ for now.
- Click ‘Save Changes’
- Go back to the ‘Items’ tab
- Click the ‘Properties’ link in the row of your first item
- Type the specs of the item concerned for each property then ‘Save’.
- Repeat for all items in the list
- Click ‘Save Changes’ to save the entire list.
- The additional properties will be visible to staff and users in the ticket details screen.
Add properties to a list
- Click the 'Properties' tab
- Label: Type the name of the property. For example, ‘Maximum Resolution’.
- Type: Choose how you want to present the information. ‘Short Answer’ means you can type a short definition into a text-box.
-
Variable – Create a variable name for the field data. The variable can be used in email templates for automated messages.
- For example, if you type ‘resolution' as the variable name for the 'Maximum Resolution' property, then you can use ‘%{identifier.resolution} in email templates to fetch the actual value. The identifier depends on the interface in which you use the form. See the explanation of variables in forms for help with this.
- Delete - Lets you remove the parameter.
Note - the 'Variable' and 'Delete' options only became active after you saving the list.
- Click
'Save Changes'.
- Reopen the 'Properties' tab after saving the list.
- Config: Set up how the property field is shown (next step). You can also set the limits, specify help text for the field, lead text shown inside the field, and more. The example below shows the configuration screen for the 'Short Answer' type field
- Configure the field and click Save
- Repeat
the process for configuring other fields
- Click the 'Save Changes' to save the properties list.
Step 4 - Enter values for the properties (optional)
- Click the 'Items' tab after saving the properties list
- Click
the 'Properties' link of an item
The fields added under the 'Properties' tab in the previous step appear in this dialog.
- Enter the values for the properties and click 'Save'
- Repeat the process to specify properties for all items
- Click 'Save Changes' to save the entered properties for the items
Step 5 - Map list items to parent list (optional)
- Custom lists can be constructed to have a multi-level 'parent-child' structure. The contents of the child list dynamically change depending on the item selected in the parent list.
Configure parent list
- Click the 'Parent List' tab
- Choose the parent list for the list you are working on:
After selecting the parent list, match items in the child to items in the parent list:
- Click 'Save Changes'
The list can be added to custom field drop-downs in custom forms.
Edit a custom list
- Open the admin panel (see the last link on the left)
- Click 'Manage' > 'Lists'
- Click the name of the custom list you want to modify
The 'Update Custom List Page' screen appears. The update procedure is similar to adding a new list. See above if you need help with this.
- Open the admin panel (see the last link on the left)
- Click 'Manage' > 'Lists'
- Select the custom lists that you want to delete from the list
- Click 'Delete' and confirm the deletion