Every organisation ends up with a piece of data its software never planned for: a security clearance level required by a defence client, a public contract number, an internal reference finance wants on every invoice. With nowhere to put it, it lands in a free-text note or in a spreadsheet on the side, and it stops being usable the day someone wants to filter on it.
AlibeeZ treats this as routine: the field you are missing, you add it. The panel above tells the story in three stages, on a project record that happens to be missing a “Clearance level”.
Three stages, one field
The diagram reads left to right, and each column is a step:
- You are missing a field: the project record already holds the client, the deadline and the lead. The clearance level box is empty, marked with a question mark.
- You add it yourself: two routes leave that gap. The direct one goes to the “New field” block, from the admin area. The other, marked “Optional”, goes first through a test base our teams deploy for you to try. The two rejoin, because they end at the same field.
- It is available everywhere: once created, the field fills the box on the record, then lights up five destinations: screens and forms, reports and dashboards, API and exchanges, Excel and CSV exports, custom rules.
Under the diagram, one sentence sets the terms: at every step our teams are there, to scope the field, create it with you and check it lands in the right place.
Which records can take a field
The short answer: wherever your business needs one. Clients, projects, people, expense claims and invoices are among the records on which AlibeeZ lets you add your own fields.
A few typical cases in a consulting or engineering firm:
- on the project, the clearance the client requires or a contract reference;
- on the person, an HR or business detail that staffing needs;
- on the expense claim, a piece of data your accountants or your client expect;
- on the invoice, a mention a client insists on.
Fields also serve in request forms. The training request shown in the article on forms carries a company-specific “Development plan” field, as a drop-down, alongside the standard ones.
Two routes to create it
From the admin area
The direct route is the “New field” block: the field is created from the AlibeeZ admin area, by your own team. It is one of the levers that are entirely yours, like tags, reports and alerts. No code to write, and no ticket to open to add a piece of data.
On a test base first
When the field touches a sensitive process, or simply when you would rather see before deciding, there is a detour. Our teams deploy the field on a test base loaded with your own data, and you try it under real conditions before it reaches production. The detour is optional: it does not slow the simple case down, it secures the one that asks for it.
With us alongside, if you want
Doing it yourself does not mean being on your own. If the need is unclear (a field or a tag? on which record?), our teams scope it with you, create the field alongside you and check it shows up where you expect. And if the need goes beyond adding data and becomes new product behaviour, it moves to the approach described in the article on tailored development.
Where the field exists afterwards
This is what separates a real field from a comment with a label. In AlibeeZ, the field you create is not confined to the record:
- Screens and forms: it appears on the record you added it to, and is filled in like the native fields.
- Reports and dashboards: it joins the available columns of the report builder. In the article on reports, the same “Clearance level” sits among the columns, badged as a custom field, ready to go into the table.
- API and exchanges: it is part of what the AlibeeZ API exposes to your tools. Writes through the API go through the same checks and the same rules as the screen.
- Excel and CSV exports: it goes out with the rest of the data, with no re-keying into a spreadsheet.
- Custom rules: your business rules can rely on it, which makes it data that acts, not just data that displays.
The same piece of data therefore travels end to end, from entry to reporting, with no intermediate copy. It is the single-repository logic at the heart of AlibeeZ, applied to your own data.
What it changes
- business data that lives in a field, filterable and exportable, instead of a note nobody queries;
- no side spreadsheet to track what the software did not plan for;
- an addition you make yourself from the admin area, with the option to try it on a test base first;
- a field that shows up in reports, the API, exports and rules, with no extra work.
Going further: if the information is there to group and compare rather than to be read, a tag is often what you need, as the article on historised tags explains. To know what to check with any vendor before signing, read the custom fields test, and to see the field at work in a table, the article on custom reports.
Frequently asked questions
Can we add a field without going through AlibeeZ?
Yes. Fields are among the levers that are entirely yours: they are created from the admin area, with no development. Our teams remain available to scope the need or create the field with you if you prefer.
Which records can take a custom field?
The records where your business needs one: clients, projects, people, expense claims and invoices, among others. Request forms can carry your own fields too.
Does a custom field show up in reports and exports?
Yes. Once created, it is available in the screens, reports and dashboards, the API, Excel and CSV exports, and your business rules. In the report builder, it appears among the available columns.
Can a new field be tested before it goes live?
Yes. Our teams can deploy it first on a test base loaded with your own data. You try it under real conditions, and nothing goes live until you have signed it off.