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Aha! Develop | Custom layouts

Custom layouts in Aha! Develop help you define the information that you want your teammates to see at two important times: when they create a record and when they view a record's details.

You can customize a record's layouts in two ways:

  • Use the Record create (pop-up) layout to ensure that the correct data is captured when a record is first created.

  • Use the Record view layout to choose how data is presented in the record's Details and Drawer views. In both Record view layouts, you can rearrange the tabs as well as the fields on a record.

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Create a custom layout

Each record type in Aha! Develop comes with a default layout of standard fields. If you want to customize the layout of a record's fields or tabs, you should create a custom layout and apply that to your team.

There are two ways to create a custom layout (or adjust an existing one):

  • On the More options button of an individual record, select Create new custom layout or Edit custom layout. Either option will open the Custom layout builder.

  • Navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom layouts. Select the record type you would like to customize, then click Add custom layout or hover over a layout that you wish to Edit. Either option will open the Custom layout builder.

With the Custom layout builder open, start by giving your custom layout a name. Each record has two layouts — the Record create (pop-up) layout and the Record view layout. We will go over these individually in the following sections.

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Customize the record create layout

Use the tabs in the top-left corner of the Custom layout builder to select the Record create (pop-up) layout. This layout is what users will see when they create a record of this type, so you often want to focus this layout around the information you need to capture first.

Let's work through this layout builder from left to right.

The Fields list on the left shows all available standard and custom fields that you can add to your layout.

You will see an example record in the center of the page, with a few default fields to get your layout started. Most record types have several fields (like Name or Type) that are standard and cannot be removed or rearranged. But everything else is up to you.

  • Drag standard, custom, or extension fields from the Fields list to your record create layout.

  • Click the X by a field in the layout (where available) to remove it from the layout.

  • Drag fields in your layout vertically to rearrange them.

  • Check the box by Required to require a field. If this box is checked, users will not be able to create that record type if the required field is empty.

Required fields are only required for records created using this layout. Aha! Develop does not enforce these requirements for records that are created from extensions, CSV import, the Aha! REST API, or Aha! Develop pages that allow for users to create records inline, such as workflow boards and backlogs. Also, after the record is created, data can be removed or edited in those required fields — they are only a requirement to create the record.

If you realize that you want to create a new custom field while you are customizing a record's Create (pop-up) layout, use the tabs in the upper left to switch to the View layout. There, you can create a custom field or navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom fields to create one.

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Customize the record view layout

Remember, users will see a record's Record view layout after it has been created. They can access a record either in its full-page Details view or in a pop-out Drawer view while they are on another page. To start customizing the Record view layout, use the tabs in the top-left corner of the Custom layout builder to switch to it.

Once applied to custom workflows, Record view layouts appear in every stage of a record's lifecycle.

You can adjust a Record view layout by adjusting its fields or its tabs.

Adjust layout fields

The Fields list on the left shows you all available Existing custom fields that you can add to your layout — with a search bar to help you sort through the list. If you realize at this point that you want to create a New custom field, you can do that as well. In either case, drag the field you want to add over to your layout. If you are creating a new field, you will be asked to name it and provide any other details relevant to that custom field.

Is your list of existing custom fields full of discarded and duplicate fields? In Settings ⚙️ Account Custom fields you can merge duplicate fields together or convert a custom field from one type to another.

You will see an example record in the center of the page, with a few default fields to get your layout started. First, configure the fields you see in the Overview tab.

  • Add fields: Drag standard, custom, or extension fields from the Fields list to your record layout to add them. Or drag them off the record layout to remove them.

  • Remove fields: Click the More options button beside a field and select Remove from layout to remove it.

    Some fields, such as Type or Status, cannot be removed from a layout.

  • Rearrange fields: Drag fields in your layout vertically to rearrange them.

  • Adjust field visibility: When users open a record after it has been created, they can sometimes see a lot of fields in the Overview tab. Use the More options button beside each field to decide whether that field should be Always shown when a user first opens the record, Hidden, or (where available) Hidden if empty. Users can always expand a record's layout to show a full list of fields, so you want to make sure that the fields most commonly used in your record workflow are always shown.

  • Mark fields read-only: Use the More options button beside a field to mark it read-only.

  • Edit custom fields: If you need to adjust a custom field that you added, click the More options button beside the field and select Edit custom field.

Adjust layout tabs

Next, configure the tabs arrangement of a record's layout. Rather than list all information at once, most Aha! Develop record types break out relevant information into tabs. Usually, you will see a Description of the record, Overview of its fields, Comments, To-dos, Related records, and the record's History. Depending on the record type or extensions you have enabled, you might also see child record types like Requirements, or a tab focusing on a particular extension.

By default, a record's Overview will be the first tab in the details view and a collapsible column on the right side of the drawer view. A record's Description or Theme defaults to a location above the other tabs, so you can read a summary of a record and then see fields that relate to it. However, you can change these defaults in custom layouts.

  • Click and drag tabs to rearrange their order.

  • You can move the Description tab out of the top position if you like. If you do this, your record layout will have nothing in the top position.

  • The Details view of a record layout includes a right sidebar. By default, the Overview tab takes this position, but you can move any tab into that sidebar. You can also choose not to place a tab here and have a layout without a sidebar.

  • A custom layout can show several tabs side-by-side, depending on the size of your browser window. The More tab is an overflow space where tabs beyond what your browser window can show appear. Use the More tab in the layout builder to select which tabs should be hidden behind the More tab if a user's browser window cannot fit all the tabs in one view.

Finished? Great! Look to the top-right corner.

  • If this is an existing layout applied to a team, hover over the Impacts # teams link to see what records changes to this layout will affect — then click into any teams to see more.

    Multiple teams can use the same custom layout — but the individual team settings (like capacity planning) might affect the fields and tabs that appear in that team when using a custom layout.

  • Use the view tabs to switch between the record view layout's Drawer and Details views.

  • Click Cancel to cancel your changes.

  • Click Save layout to save your layout.

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Mark fields read-only

Developer estimates that product managers should not adjust, epics that are approved contingent on specific budgets: custom layouts highlight critical information through fields and tabs — but sometimes you do not want your team to update that information.

Read-only fields block anyone from updating the field through a record's drawer or details view, so that users in your Aha! Develop account have the proper context but cannot accidentally adjust fields that need to stay static.

Read-only fields are not locked fields, however. They can still be updated through several pathways: the Aha! API, through an extension, and through bulk edits in the Work List view. This is often the key to read-only fields' true value: the right people can update them, and everyone can benefit from their information.

To mark a field as read-only, click the More options button in a record's View layout, and select Read-only. Once you Save your layout, the field you marked read-only will be immediately uneditable through the record's detail or drawer view.

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Extension custom fields

Some view extension contributions, such as Figma, GitLab, GitHub, CircleCI, or Sentry, 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.

For example, the Sentry importer extension comes with an optional Sentry extension custom field. The Sentry extension links records in Aha! Develop with Sentry issues. The Sentry extension custom field will display the latest details on the linked Sentry issue, including the number of times the event has occurred, the number of users affected, and when the issue was first and last seen. It will also show a graph of issue's 30 day frequency — so the current state of the problem is easy to ascertain.

Drag extension custom fields to a record's create or view layouts just as you would standard or custom fields.

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Apply custom layouts to your team

To apply an existing custom layout to your team, navigate to Settings ⚙️ Team Configure Custom layouts. Select the layout you want to use for a particular record type. Assigning layouts here to a record type will assign both the record create layout and the record view layout for that record type.

A record will only display the custom fields that are included in the Record view layout of the team where the record resides. For example, you could create a feature in Team A and then move it to a release for Team B, which uses a different layout. For the same data to be visible in Team B, the layout for Team B must include the same custom fields that were defined in Team A.

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