From time-to-time you might find that you no longer have any use for a custom field on your database. In this scenario you can either hide the field from the form or delete the field entirely. You will need to have System Administrator capabilities in order to do either of these things.

Hiding the field

To hide the field click Start > Configuration > Customisation > Record Types. Select the appropriate record type from the list in the grid on the right. Open the Form Layouts tab and select the layout from which you want to hide the field and within the Fields tab, find the field you want to hide. Click to open it and then remove the tick from the checkbox next to Show.

NOTE:  You can 'hide' any field from a layout, not just custom fields EXCEPT native Workbooks fields that are configured as being mandatory.

Deleting the field

STOP! Do you really want to delete the field? Deleting a custom field means that any values held in that field will disappear and cannot be retrieved. For this reason it is generally better to use the hide option as described above rather than delete.

Occasionally however, you might have a real need to delete the field and all of its values. To do this click Start > Configuration > Customisation > Record Types. Select the appropriate record type from the list in the grid on the right.  Open the Custom Fields tab. Find the field you want to delete and click the delete button (the white cross on a red circle). A dialogue box will appear asking if you're sure that you want to delete it. This is your chance to change your mind. If you're absolutely sure you want to delete the field click Yes. The field will disappear from all records immediately.