The Design form window is where you decide what a form or a tab looks like: which fields appear, which tab each one sits on, in what order, and who can edit them. Almost every form in SysAid has one.
Most of the time you are working on a single tab. Each tab holds its own set of fields and is configured separately from the others.
Available for:
Customers using SysAid Spaces. If you're using SysAid Classic, see Customize Forms Classic.
Opening the Design form window
Look in the top right corner of the form. Depending on how recently the page was rebuilt, you will see one of three things:
A Modify Layout button
A Design Form button
A triangle icon
All three open the same window.
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Please note:
The window opens as a separate browser window, so allow pop-ups from your SysAid address.
How it works
Not every control appears on every form. The Design Form window shows what the form you are editing supports, so if you cannot see a setting described below, that form does not offer it.
Where an entity has types, such as assets, a Type drop-down appears at the top, and each type is configured separately. A Workstation and a Laptop can therefore look quite different from each other. Forms whose entity has no types do not show this. See Asset Types.
Save applies to the tab currently shown in Tab, and nothing else. If you want to change several tabs, save each one before moving on to the next.
You are changing the form, not the record. Whatever you do here applies to every record that uses this form, not just the one you opened to get here.
Nothing you do here deletes data. Removing a field from a tab, or deleting a tab, only changes what the form displays. Any values those fields hold are still there, and still visible if you put the field back.
Before you begin
Changing a form needs the SysAid Administrator permission, and the button or icon does not appear without it. SysAid customization is one of the capabilities that can only be granted through SysAid Administrator, so it cannot be handed out on its own: selecting it grants every other permission at the same time. See Managing Agent and Admin Permissions.
Design Form actions
Adding and removing fields
Visible fields is what the tab shows, and Available fields is everything else you could put there.
Select the Tab you want to change, and the Type if the form has one.
Select a field in Available fields and click the right arrow to add it.
Select a field in Visible fields and click the left arrow to remove it.
Click Save.
Available fields lists everything not already on the tab you are editing, which includes fields sitting on the form's other tabs. That is deliberate. The same field can appear on two tabs, and editing it in either place changes the same value.
Some forms also let you place whole tabs as though they were fields. On the asset form, for example, adding Hardware to the Information tab puts the Hardware tab's contents there.
Changing the order of fields
Fields appear on the tab in the order they appear in Visible fields.
Select a field in Visible fields.
Use the up and down arrows beside the list to move it.
Click Save.
Setting a default value
A default value fills the field in automatically every time someone creates a record of this type. It does not change records that already exist.
Select the field in Visible fields.
Enter the value in Default value.
Click Save.
Leave Default value empty for no default.
Making a field read-only
Read-only fields are visible but cannot be edited. Use this for values that something else should be setting, such as a due date governed by escalation rules.
Select the field in Visible fields.
Select View only except for User Groups.
Choose the user groups that should still be able to edit the field.
Click Save.
Please note:
The user groups you choose are the exception, not the target. Anyone in them keeps the ability to edit the field, and everyone else does not. Choose no groups at all and the field becomes read-only for everyone.
In the Pro edition, this checkbox is called View only and makes the field read-only for everyone, with no choice of user groups.
Making a field required
A required field must have a value before the record can be saved.
Select the field in Visible fields.
Select Required.
Click Save.
Please note:
Required is set per tab, not per field. If the same field appears on two tabs, marking it required on one tab does not make it required on the other, so set it in both places if that is what you want.
Requiring unique values
On asset and CI forms, you can require that a field's value is not already used by another asset or CI. If someone enters a value that is in use, SysAid refuses to save and shows an error.
Select the field in Visible fields.
Select Unique.
Click Save.
Please note:
Unique behaves differently from Required. SysAid checks the value whenever the asset or CI is saved, not only when the tab holding the field is open, and it compares against that field on every other asset and CI even where the field is not on their form at all.
Renaming a tab
Select the Tab you want to rename.
Enter the new name in Tab caption.
Click Save.
Please note:
Rename the tabs you create, and leave the rest alone. The tabs SysAid provides store their captions as translation references rather than plain text, which is why Tab caption shows something like $resource.getString('SREdit.details') for them. Some of those references are shared between forms, so overwriting one can rename a tab on a form you were not editing, and it replaces a caption that translates into every language with plain text that does not.
Hiding a tab
To hide a tab from everyone, select it, clear Visible for User Groups, and click Save.
To show a tab to some user groups only, select it, select Visible for User Groups, choose the groups that should see it, and click Save. Anyone outside those groups cannot see the tab.
A form's first tab cannot be hidden, so the setting does not appear for it. Restricting a tab to particular user groups is available in the Full edition only.
Creating a tab
Click New Tab. On forms with types, select the Type first.
Enter a name in Tab caption.
Add the fields you want from Available fields.
Click Save.
Deleting a tab
Select the Tab you want to delete.
Click Delete Tab.
Confirm when prompted.
A form's first tab cannot be deleted, so Delete Tab does not appear for it. The fields that were on the tab are not deleted, and neither is anything they hold.
Renaming custom fields
Custom fields arrive with generic names such as Asset Custom Text 1. Tab caption renames tabs, not fields, so to give a custom field a meaningful label, go to Settings > Languages > Translations.
Service record forms
Service record forms in SysAid Spaces are built in the Template Designer rather than here. See Service Record Template Designer.
The Design form window still governs the submission forms end users see in the Self-Service Portal. To reach those, go to Settings > Customization > Self-Service Portal > Incident Submission Form or Request Submission Form.
Example: the asset form
The asset form is the most configurable form in SysAid, so it shows what the window can do.
It has sixteen tabs and well over a hundred placeable items, which means no two accounts see the same asset form. It is configured per asset type, so a Workstation and a Laptop are separate pieces of work. Its field list includes whole tabs alongside ordinary fields. And because assets support Unique, it is one of only two forms where that setting appears.
For what each asset field holds, see Asset Field Reference. For what each of its tabs is for, see Viewing and Editing an Asset.