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Aha! Develop | Custom fields

Custom fields capture data for you that is important to your business but not a part of your Aha! account by default. You can add any number of fields to suit your needs.

To avoid cluttering the UI with unused fields, we suggest that you add only what is essential. If you find yourself with a cluttered list of custom fields, you can always merge fields together or convert one type to another.

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Create a custom field

Follow these steps to create a custom field. Depending on the custom field type you select, you may be interested in the notes after the instructions.

  1. Navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom fields.

  2. Click a tab to select a record type, and then click Add custom field.

  3. Select the type of field you want to add, and then click Next.

  4. Enter the field details and, if needed, enter an API key in the Key field. Depending on the custom field type you select, this step is also where you can bulk edit predefined field values.

  5. Specify the custom layout where your custom field should appear by choosing Use in layouts and selecting the custom field layout in use by your team. If you do not have any custom layouts yet, choose Use in teams. This will automatically create a new custom layout for your new custom field and assign that layout to the team you have selected.

  6. Click Create to create your field.

  • Record relationship fields allow you to associate Aha! Develop records with other record types. These are a tag type field that allow for multiple selections — though users will only be able to select values that they have appropriate user permissions to see. If you create a record relationship custom field, you can use Filter field values to specify whether the selectable values should span your entire Aha! Develop account or be isolated to a specific subset of your account's teams.

  • Some extensions, such as Figma, or the Sentry importer, come with their own custom fields. You cannot customize these fields; installing the extension creates the custom fields automatically, and you can then add them to a custom layout.

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Customize your custom field

If you created a custom field with choices — such as choice lists or tags fields — then you can customize the color and order of the choices after you create them.

To do this, click your custom field in the list of custom fields.

  • In the Choices section, click and drag to reorder the choices.

  • Click Manage choices or Manage tag choices to open the Configure options page, then click Edit beside any choice to rename it or give it a specific Color. Click Save to save your edits.

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Add the custom field to a custom layout

Every record in your Aha! Develop account has a layout — an arrangement of fields and tabs. You can create custom layouts to customize that arrangement, require or hide fields, or add in your own custom fields. Navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom layouts to add your custom field to a layout. If you added your custom field to a layout while creating it, use this page to adjust where on a layout you want your field to appear.

There are two types of custom layouts — one for a record's creation, and one for the record after its creation. You can set a different layout for each type of view — the Record create layout and the Record view layout. You may only want to require a few fields for a user to create a new record, for example. But once it has been created and progresses towards completion, your workflow might require many more fields.

On the Configure custom layouts page, first select the record type whose layout you would like to edit or create. Then:

  • Click Add custom layout to open the custom layout builder and create a new custom layout.

  • Click on an existing layout to open the custom layout builder and edit the layout.

In either case, use the Layouts dropdown to select whether you would like to modify the Record create layout or the Record view layout, then:

  • Drag fields to add, rearrange, or remove them for each layout type — you can even create custom fields in the Record view layout!

  • Click and drag tabs to the order that best fits your needs.

  • In the Record create layout, you can mark individual fields as Required. Users will not be able to create the record using your layout until they enter information into all the Required fields.

  • In the Record view layout, you can mark individual fields as Read-only. You can also toggle between Detail and Drawer views. Read-only fields prevent a user from editing them from the detail or drawer views of a record.

    Read-only views can still be edited through extensions or the Aha! API.

  • If you are editing an existing layout, click the Impacts link to see any teams using your layout.

  • Click Save layout to save your changes.

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Apply your custom layout to your team

Now that you have your layout defined, it is time to determine which teams it will apply to. To do this, navigate to Settings ⚙️ Teams Configure.

Scroll to the Custom layouts section, and then select the layout you want to apply to that team for each record type:

  • Select None to revert back to the standard layout.

  • Select a Custom layout to apply a particular layout. If you have the appropriate user permissions, you can also Edit the layout here.

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Group records by custom fields on workflow boards

By default, workflow boards group records by status — so you can see how your work is progressing. You can choose to add horizontal swimlanes to workflow boards for another level of insight. Swimlanes include standard fields such as Assignee, Epic, or Feature, but you can also group work by the following custom fields:

  • Predefined choice lists

  • Editable choice lists

These custom fields have discrete choices, which guarantee that a record will only appear in one swimlane on a workflow board. You could have a custom field focused on priority, class of service, or maybe even by product.

To do this, navigate to Work My board or Work Team board. Any user in your Aha! Develop account with at least contributor user permissions can add and manage work on the workflow boards.

Once there, select your custom field from the Group by dropdown. The selection you make here will only apply to your view of the workflow board — so you will not change the board for any other user in your account.

After you have grouped records by a custom field, you can change the custom field value on a record by dragging it to a different swimlane. For example, if you have a predefined choice list custom field to indicate a record's urgency, you could drag a feature from Major to Critical to change that feature's urgency.

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Merge custom fields together

Let's talk next about how to manage custom fields in your Aha! Develop account. Duplicate custom fields lead to clutter and confusion, especially if you are trying to use the same fields in the same custom layouts across multiple teams.

If you encounter this situation, you can merge duplicate fields without losing any data.

  • To do this, navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom fields. Start with the duplicate field, the one you want to get rid of. Hover over it and click the More options menu, then click Merge.

  • Select the field you want to merge your field into. This is the field you want to use going forward. You can merge fields of the same type together.

  • Click Merge. Once you do, your old custom field will be replaced with the new custom field in any custom layouts, and all existing values for the old custom field will be converted to values for the new custom field where possible.

  • If you accessed the old field through the Aha! REST API, you will need to use the new field's API Key.

You cannot un-merge two custom fields, so be careful with this action!

Since there are so many different types of custom fields, merging can work a little differently depending on the field types you are merging.

Field types you can merge whether or not the fields have values

  • Standard custom fields

    • Predefined tags field

    • Tags field

  • Aha! record relationship fields

    • Teams field

    • Epics field

    • Releases field

    • Features field

    • Users field

Field types you can merge if at least one field is blank, but cannot merge if both fields have values

  • Standard custom fields

    • Predefined choice list

    • Editable choice list

Field types you cannot merge

  • Standard custom fields

    • Text field

    • Note

    • Number field

    • Date field Date fields are not associated with a timezone.

    • Attachment

    • URL/Email field

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Convert custom fields to different field types

Merging helps you combine two fields of the same type. But sometimes you create a custom field in the wrong type — an editable choice list, for example, that you realize should have been a predefined choice list. In this situation, you can convert an existing custom field to another type.

  • To do this, navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom fields. Hover over the field you wish to convert and click More options, then Convert.

  • Select the field type you want to convert your custom field to from the list of available field types.

  • Click Convert custom field.

  • Since your newly converted custom field will retain its original API Key, you will not need to adjust reports, roadmaps, or integrations that include it.

Some conversions are only one-way. For example, you can convert an editable choice list to a note field, but you cannot convert a note field to an editable choice list. So be careful with this action!

Field types that support conversion

  • Standard custom fields

    • Text field

    • Note

    • Number field

    • Date field Date fields are not associated with a timezone.

    • URL/Email field

    • Predefined choice list

    • Editable choice list

    • Predefined tags field

    • Tags field

Field types that do not support conversion

  • Standard custom fields

    • Attachment

  • Aha! record relationship fields

    • Releases field

    • Epics field

    • Features field

    • Users field

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Search for custom field values

You can use Aha! search to search for custom field values for most types of custom fields. The following custom field types are searchable:

  • Text

  • Note

  • Number

  • URL/Email

  • Predefined choice list

  • Editable choice list

  • Predefined tags

  • Tags

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Import data to custom fields

After you create a custom field, you can populate it using CSV imports. Each custom field requires its own column. If you are using a custom field with a predefined list, make sure the data you are importing matches the options in the list.

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