Fields and Data Types

Learning Objectives

• Understand the concept of Fields (analogy to Excel columns).
• Master Core Technical Specs: Character limits, numeric precision, and rounding rules.
• Key Difficulty: Thoroughly clarify the difference between Lookup and Master-Detail relationships.
• Understand the special formats of various fields in Reports and Data Import.

What is a Field?

If an Object is a worksheet (Sheet) in Excel, then a Field is the row of Columns in the header.

Fields determine the format of the data (Is it text or a number?) and the rules (What is the maximum number of characters allowed?).

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1. Text & Input

Used to store unstructured information such as names, descriptions, and notes.

Field Type	Icon	Use Case
Text	🅰️	Names, Titles
Long Text	📝	Detailed descriptions, notes
Rich Text	📰	Announcements, Articles
Email	📧	Customer email addresses
URL	🔗	Official website links

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2. Numbers & Currency

Data involving amounts, quantities, and statistics.

Precision Warning

All numeric fields (Number, Currency, Percent) lose precision after 15 decimal places. If you enter too many decimal places, the system may truncate them.

Number

• Scenario: Inventory quantity, age, sort order.
• Rules:
• Leading Zeros: Automatically removed by the system (e.g., 007 becomes 7).
• Rounding Rule: Uses "Round half up".
• 12.345 -> 12.35
• -12.345 -> -12.35

Currency

• Scenario: Contract amount, unit price. The system automatically adds currency symbols (¥, $).
• Rules:
• Rounding Rule: Uses "Banker's Rounding" (Round-half-to-even). This is a standard algorithm for financial systems (rounding to the nearest even number when the fraction is exactly .5) to reduce cumulative errors in large-scale calculations.
• 23.5 -> 24 (5 follows no digits, rounds up to even)
• 22.5 -> 22 (5 follows no digits, rounds down to even)

Percent

• Scenario: Discount rate, completion percentage.
• Rule: Enter a decimal (e.g., 0.10), and the system displays it as a percentage (10%).

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3. Date & Time

Field Type	Description	Example Format
Date	Year, month, and day only. Primary basis for report filtering.	2025-12-31
Date/Time	Includes year, month, day, and specific time.	2025-12-31 14:30
Time	Time only. Supports milliseconds. Z at the end represents GMT.	17:30:45.125Z

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4. Logic & Choice

Used to standardize input and prevent users from entering invalid data.

Checkbox

• Definition: Only two states: "Yes/No" (e.g., Is Resigned?).
• Data Representation (Important):
• In UI: Displayed as a checkbox ☑️.
• In Report Filters: Uses True (checked) and False (unchecked).
• In Data Import/Export: Uses 1 (checked) and 0 (unchecked).

Select (Picklist)

• Definition: Single-select dropdown menu.
• Configuration: Requires pre-defined Labels (Display values) and Values (Code values). Supports multi-select.

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5. Relationships — Core Reading

Steedos' core capability lies in handling relationships between tables. This is the area most prone to confusion for beginners.

Lookup Relationship — "Weak Association"

"You can point to it, but you are independent."

• Scenario: Work Order linked to Customer; Employee belonging to a Department.
• UI: Displayed as a magnifying glass icon 🔍, clicking it pops up a selection window.
• Behavioral Characteristics:
• Independence: If the "Customer" (Parent) is deleted, the "Work Order" (Child) is usually not deleted (the relationship field simply becomes empty).
• Flexibility: This field is usually optional (e.g., a lead might not belong to a company yet).

Master-Detail Relationship — "Strong Association"

"United in life and death; the Master controls everything."

• Scenario: Expense Report and Expense Items; Order and Order Line Items.
• Behavioral Characteristics:

1. Cascade Delete: If the "Expense Report" (Master) is deleted, all "Items" (Detail) are automatically deleted by the system.
2. Security Inheritance: The permissions of the detail record depend entirely on the master record. If you don't have permission to view the "Expense Report," you cannot view its "Items."
3. Required: A detail record must always be linked to a master; "orphan" data cannot exist.
4. Roll-Up Summary: Roll-up summary functions can only be used if a Master-Detail relationship is established.

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6. Formula

"Calculate results automatically, just like Excel formulas."

Formula fields are read-only; users cannot fill them in manually. Values are calculated in real-time based on expressions you write. When source data changes, the formula result updates immediately.

• Use Cases:
• Simple Math: Total Price = Unit Price * Quantity
• Text Concatenation: Full Name = Last Name + " " + First Name
• Logic: Status = (End Date < Today) ? "Expired" : "Normal"
• Cross-object Value: Display fields of a related object directly (e.g., displaying the "Customer Tier" directly on the "Contract" page).

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7. Roll-Up Summary

"Automate the totals by looking at the details."

This is one of Steedos' most powerful statistical features. It allows the master record (Parent) to automatically summarize data from all its detail records (Children).

Core Prerequisite

A "Master-Detail Relationship" must be established! If the relationship between two objects is just a standard "Lookup Relationship," you cannot use Roll-Up Summary fields. This is the most common configuration error.

• Four Supported Operations:

1. Count: How many "Tasks" are under this "Project"?
2. Sum: What is the total amount of all "Closed Orders" for this "Customer"?
3. Min: What is the earliest start date among the "Tasks" of this project?
4. Max: What is the largest amount among all "Payments" for this salesperson?

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8. Auto Number

"Give every piece of data a unique ID number."

Instead of manual entry, the Auto Number field generates incremental sequence numbers automatically to ensure they are never duplicated.

• Format Syntax:
• {0000} represents the numeric sequence.
• {YYYY}, {MM}, {DD} represent the current year, month, and day.
• Example: Setting the format to INV-{YYYY}-{0000} will generate INV-2025-0001, followed by INV-2025-0002.

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FAQ

Q: Can I change a field type after it's created? A: High Risk! Although allowed, it often leads to data loss or truncation. For example, changing "Long Text" to "Text" will cut off data exceeding 255 characters; changing "Text" to "Number" will clear non-numeric content.

Q: How do I make a field "Mandatory"? A: Check the Required attribute when creating or editing a field. Note: This applies to all layers (API, Import, UI entry), so use it carefully.