Creating a custom object

Defining an object, its fields and how tickets reach it. The naming decisions are the ones that last.

Defining an object, its fields and how tickets reach it. The naming decisions are the ones that last.

Create it

1. Open Admin Center, then Objects and rules, then Custom objects.
2. Add an object. Give it a singular and a plural name.
3. Add its fields.
4. Decide which field is the display name, shown when someone picks a record.
5. Save.
6. Add a lookup relationship field on tickets pointing at it.

The display name matters more than it looks

It is what agents see in a picker. A contract shown as its ID number is unusable; shown as the customer name plus the contract type, it is obvious.

Pick the field that lets a human recognise the right record at a glance.

Fields: start narrow

Only what you will act on: show to an agent, use in a rule, or report on. Everything else is a field somebody has to populate and keep true.

Objects are easier to extend than to prune, because pruning means deciding what happens to the data already in there.

Connect it to tickets

An object nothing points at is a list. The lookup relationship field on the ticket is what makes it useful, and adding a filter to that field so agents only see relevant records is what makes it usable.

Permissions

Who can see and edit records is configurable, and worth setting deliberately. Contract values and renewal dates are not always something every agent should be able to change.

See also

• Setting permissions on custom object records
• Lookup relationship fields: pointing at another user, organisation or ticket
• Adding and managing records