Linking Custom Field Values

How to link two Custom Field Values to automatically populate the other when converting or copying documents.

Populating custom fields with the value from a custom field on another record (linking custom field values)

It’s bad practice to give two custom fields on the same record type the same field label as it will cause confusion in reports and filtered grids. However, there are instances when you will want to create custom fields with the same field label (but on different record types) so that the values entered in those fields appear on other records. It’s possible to achieve this but only in specific circumstances.  For example:

• When converting a Lead so that values captured on the Lead also appear on one or more of the resulting Person / Organisation /Opportunity record.
• When you want the values you’ve put in custom fields you’ve added to a Product to appear on the Line Items of one or more Transaction records when using that Product.
• When copying Transaction records, if you want the value on, say, an Opportunity to appear on an Order.

For the values to copy through from one record to another you need to create a custom field of exactly the same type and with exactly the same field label on both records. For example, if you created a custom field of type Picklist, to which you give the field label ‘Current Solution’ on a Lead and you wanted the value to appear on the resulting Person record when you convert the Lead, you need to add a custom field of type Picklist with the field label ‘Current Solution’ on a Person record too.

Similarly, if you wanted the value to appear on the resulting Opportunity record you would need to add a custom field of type Picklist with the field label ‘Current Solution’ on an Opportunity record. In each case, the picklist used for the field should be the same.

If you add a custom field to a Product – for example an integer field called ‘Weight’, and you want the weight of the product to be visible on a Line Item when that Product is added to a Transaction, you must create a custom field of type integer on the Line Item for each Transaction record type where you want to be able to see the weight and give it a field label of ‘Weight’.

Finally, if you add a custom field to either the header or the line item of a Transaction record and you want the value to appear on any other type of transaction when you use the Copy Document functionality, you need to add a custom field of the same type and with the same field label to each Transaction record.