Add standard fields to all tables

Ideas & Product Feedback
1

It would be great to have standard fields automatically added to all tables, such as Date Added, Last Modified Date, and the Login for both.

This is pretty common on other platforms and would be nice to not have to add them and or the workflow to all the forms.

4 Likes
2

Not sure this is necessary.

I do know what you’re talking about. Some years ago FileMaker started adding default fields to every new table and I guess it was a step in the right direction. FileMaker auto-creates:

  • PrimaryKey (set to auto-enter UUID)
  • CreationTimestamp (from local user’s machine)
  • CreatedBy (logged-in user’s ‘account’ name)
  • ModificationTimestamp (from local user’s machine)
  • ModifiedBy (logged-in user’s ‘account’ name)

But I’ve never been completely happy with these fields, and I end up editing them all the time.

Anyway, as I said, not sure this is necessary. In Tadabase, go to Data Builder > Settings > Record Tracking and enable Log Record Changes. Done! You’ve now got most of what I think you’re after. Would that work for you?

3

I’ve used a lot, those predefined fields with FileMaker.
They helped a lot, you didn’t have to make rules (at various points) to insert creation or modification dates and modifier username, if you didn’t use them they didn’t create problems.

With the function you say, you cannot sort the records by creation date, modification date, user, etc. Yet I’m sure this database-level data is already written.
I am also of the idea that they are useful.

William, what do you think of the Global field, have you found an alternative in TB?

4

I assume that records not sorted in some other way are sorted by creation timestamp (as in FileMaker). Sorting by modification timestamp? You can of course easily created a modified field using a rule. Seems to me there ought to be a formula for pulling that value from the record metadata that Tadabase captures automatically but I don’t know how to do it (and I just was trying to find out how). Easier in Airtable.

I assume you mean global fields in FileMaker, right? I have a couple of thoughts.

  • Global fields in FileMaker were great when we needed them. Now with global variables, it’s very seldom necessary to use global fields in FileMaker.
  • I haven’t felt the need for global FIELDS in Tadabase. O
    ne of Tadabase’s advantages (as compared say to Knack or Airtable) is the presence of application variables (“App variables”). You can define them in the app Settings dialog on the App Variables tab. I haven’t made great use of them but they’re there waiting for me.

There are a lot of things in FileMaker that require FileMaker features that have no direct counterpart in Tadabase. Good example: Scripts. But I simply don’t need Scripts in Tadabase as much as I did in FileMaker. In FileMaker most (not all, but most) of the things that I used scripts for, simply don’t require scripting in Tadabase — like navigating, creating records, etc.

Tadabase is definitely different and requires a significant change in the way I think about solving problems. But I’ve run into very few problems in Tadabase that simply didn’t have a solution. Wasn’t always obvious to me but thankfully, Tadabase support is outstanding.

5

I too feel the need for GLOBAL fields and GLOBAL columns. In the legacy Lotus Notes/Domino app, this was an extremely useful feature for Rapid Application Development. One could put all Global fields into a subform and embed/attach/insert that subform into any Form. Tada! If you wanted to change any of those, then all you had to do was change that one subform, and all forms would get the change.

Similarly, sometimes there are columns with formats (display rules - icon, color, hide) etc that are reused in multiple tables eg.Gender/Status/Stage etc. I generally use a standard colored icon, all over the app, to represent certain standard field values. If this was a “Shared” or GLOBAL column, I’d just have to reference that and voila, all tables with that column are standardised and effortlessly made consistent in appearance.

Global or shared elements/components would definitely take productivity up, many notches. I have extensively used these Global Variables in the past.

That said, I have still to explore how local variables and app variables work and whether those would somehow compensate for the Global fields and columns that I miss so much.