TeamDesk Knowledge Base & Support

Slava Shinderov  Staff  4/23/2013 3:06:00 AM

@basenine Please consider renaming "New Lookup - Address" column to "Address", so you'll get what's needed in both places without using "Alternate Label" at all.

basenine 4/23/2013 4:54:53 AM

Hi Slava.

Maybe a bad example…😉 It doesn't necessarily have to be a Lookup.. With Lookups, I've gotten into the habit of flagging it as a lookup by naming it New Lookup - xyz… I find it neater and easier to find.

Another example where this comes into play is when there is a Postal Address, Postal City, Postal State, Postal Post Code and a Site Address, Site City, Site State, Site Post Code. You create 2 Formulas to combine the fields as one:
[Full Site Address] (as you can't have [Site Address] again) and [Full Postal Address]. [Full Site Address] looks like this:

[Site Address] & "\n" & List(", ",[Site City], [Site State], [Site Pcode])

In the Form, you Edit the Site Address, Site City, Site State, Site Post Code and View the [Full Site Address]…But you want to View it on the Form labelled as [Site Address]… So you go to the Form Layout and type Site Address in the Alternative Label


Sometimes you might even want two formula Addresses…the second one being [Full Site Address - Linear]:

List(", ",[Site Address], [Site City], [Site State], [Site Pcode])

You still call this Site Address when Viewing the Form and it might be the one you want to use for one of the Records View.

Forms are Dynamic based on Role(), User() etc and [Site Address] may need to be shown in any number of formats. Views, too, can be Role() or User() Dependant…you get the idea.

I'm sure there are other examples. I'll have a think and a look through some of my applications where I know it would be handy.

If it was a simple as just changing the Column Name, why is there an alternative name… Just Sayin'
😉

basenine 9/8/2013 10:18:32 PM

Is there any consideration for an Alternate Column Name Label please?

Rick Cogley 9/9/2013 8:50:05 PM

Sometimes, the column name is indicative of purpose, and is a bit too long for display in either a form or a view. What we have done in the past is to use formula-xxx fields, and name it appropriate to the location.

For us I am not sure if the same alt name for forms and views would work. What about having an alt name field for the column, and allow that to be turned on for the view or form, and, allow overriding in the form setup, as well.

Of course, if you then consider "multilingual" at all, it's kind of a can of worms...

basenine 9/9/2013 9:33:01 PM

Hi Rick... I'd thought about doing the formula column but thought it was a bit of a workaround rather than inbuilt functionality. I'm with you regarding an alt name in the column setup - that'd be the best for us.

Philipp Matuschka 9/10/2013 9:45:04 AM

@Rick: Tell me more about the formula-xxx approach

Rick Cogley 9/10/2013 4:39:38 PM

@Phillipp - if you have a text field called [ABC Field with a Long Name] and you want [ABC], you can just make a formula text [ABC] that points at the original with the unwieldy name.

Rick Cogley 9/10/2013 4:42:58 PM

Then you would use the [ABC] in the view where you wanted the short name.

basenine 9/10/2013 4:43:01 PM

Great explanation @rick!

Philipp Matuschka 9/11/2013 7:15:28 AM

@Rick. Ah OK. That I already do, mainly as a workaround for having to deal with both English and German users. What I was hoping you might tell me was that there is a way to have a formula to populate the Alternative Label field in forms, which was a suggestion I made sometime ago as an interim solution to multi lingual.

Rick Cogley 9/11/2013 7:37:04 AM

Ah, that would be nice! I don't think we can programmatically control that. :-)

Philipp Matuschka 9/11/2013 7:38:00 AM

Not yet, unless the good guys at TeamDesk decide to implement it for us

basenine 9/11/2013 5:39:56 PM

@philipp... I'd requested a similar feature too - column name based on formula. I think now it requires two columns named differently and the form control specifies which one is visible. Pain for multi lingual though

calvin peters 11/21/2017 8:51:00 AM

Many "column" names are not very meaningful to end users. Using the "Alternate Label" in forms only makes sense.

Nick Ashcroft 10/10/2018 3:04:12 AM

I would love the ability to alter a column name for display purposes. This is already support on forms but not yet in views. Please allow ability to use a 'friendly' name in a view.

thanks