|
|
|
|
|
Field value mapping
For fields which are List of specific choices or Checklist of specific choices, you have the option of mapping displayed values to different stored codes. What does this mean? Let's take the hypothetical scenario of the field Preferred swag. It has the values:
If you don't check the box Map displayed values to different stored codes, VSys stores the value "T-shirt", "Sweatpants" or "Baseball cap" for each person. This is fine until you decide next year to rename one of the values from "Baseball cap" to "Sports cap" in order to avoid being sport-ist. When you do that, the stored values for people who preferred baseball caps are no longer valid!
Instead, if you used stored codes, your setup could look like this:
Now VSys doesn't store "Baseball cap", it stores "C" instead. Changing the description for "Baseball cap" to "Sports cap" means that everyone who previously had "Baseball cap" as their preference now has "Sports cap" - no confusion.
Importing
When importing fields using the Interactive File Importer, VSys lets you use either the value's description, e.g. "T-shirt", or its stored value, e.g. "T". It's important to make sure that you don't have two values with the same description or code, or VSys may import your data in an unexpected way.
Working with these lists
Add a new item to the bottom of the list by clicking on Add another item. Or, if your cursor is on the last item in the list, click the down-arrow key on your keyboard. Right-click on the list to:
Add a new value |
Adds a new, blank value to the list. |
Delete this value |
Deletes the current item from the list. |
Move up |
Moves the current item up in the list. |
Move down |
Moves the current item down in the list. |
Copy complete list to clipboard |
Copies the whole list - text and codes - to the Windows clipboard. You can then paste this value onto another custom field's setup. |
Paste list from clipboard |
Empties the current list and populates it with the items you copied from another list. |
Sort items alphabetically |
Sorts all of the items and their corresponding codes alphabetically by the field values. |
If you delete or change the codes for an existing field, VSys will not delete the existing values as associated with people, but it will also not be able to use those existing values.