The Customs Editor is an Advanced tool and requires Org Admin privileges. 

The Customs Editor is where you'll go to edit, add, remove, and rearrange the fields in the custom sections of a project type. Though there are certain sections that are “built-in,” meaning they cannot be customized, the majority of your project sections will be customizable. The Customs Editor is also where you'll make changes to the vitals of a project type and where you'll add or remove phases in a project type. Any changes that you make in the Customs Editor will require that you refresh your web browser page to see the changes go live in a specific project.

These are some common customizations that require the Customs Editor:

• adding a new date field in an Intake section
• adding a person field to the case summary section
• changing the order in which the Vitals are displayed
• adding a new “Litigation” phase for your project type

To begin, navigate to the Customs Editor by clicking on the hamburger menu in the top left corner. Click “Advanced” and then click “Customs Editor” in the left sidebar. Choose your Org, if prompted, and then choose a Project Type. 

Settings
Sections
Vitals
Phases
Folders
Mastering the Customs Editor (Video)

Settings

Change the search settings, name, notes, and default contact type for a project by clicking on the cog icon in the top right corner of the Customs Editor. 

In the open template setting modal, you can edit the project template’s name and abbreviation, select and deselect the visibility of the template for this Org, and add any internal notes for the template. 

You can also select the default contact type for the project client. By default, project clients are limited to the “client” contact type, but you can choose to limit the project client field’s default search to any contact type. Contact types can be created and edited in the Contacts Setup Advanced tool.

The leftmost tab in the Customs Editor is called the “Sections” tab. This is where you'll create new sections, which will appear in the left sidebar in all projects of the selected type. This tab is also where you'll create and change the fields in any customs sections. We'll go through creating a custom section and adding a field or widget step-by-step below.

Creating a New Section

1. Begin creating a new section. Click on the “Create New Section” in the top right to open the “Section Properties” window, shown below. Choose an icon and a unique name for your section. The “Section Selector” field will fill automatically. You can also choose to hide this section, meaning the data will be kept but the section will no longer appear on the frontend of the project.
   
   
2. Select a section type. In the dropdown menu beside “Section Type,” you will see several “Built-in” options. Built-in sections are special sections that cannot be customized. If you are creating a section from scratch, you will choose “Custom.”
3. Choose Collection or Static. If you’ve selected the “Custom” section type, the question “Is Collection?” will appear. If the section you're creating should be a collections section, check this box. If you do not check this box, the section will be static. Once you save the section, this cannot be changed, so choose carefully!
4. Save the section. Click the “Save” button to save the section and begin adding fields. You can also reorder where this section is displayed by clicking the up and down arrows next to each section.

Creating a New Field or Widget

1. Open the “Create New Field Template” window. Click on the section that this new field will be added to. At the top or bottom of this section, click on the “+ Add Field/Widget” link. This will open the window.
2. Choose field or widget. At the top of this window, you will see a “Field” and a “Widget” button. Click on the button that fits the item you’d like to add. Fields include anything that needs to be filled, like a text box or date field, as well as Yes/No toggles. Widgets include instructions, subheaders, and buttons for DocGen and Fusion.
3. Select field or widget type. Next, select the correct field or widget from the dropdown menu. Your selection will depend on what the field or widget is being used for. If you want a field that can only take currency, for example, you would choose the “Amount - Currency” field.
4. Fill out the sections. Enter a unique field prompt or name. This is what will appear above or before the field/widget in the section. The field/widget selector will fill in automatically.  For additional options, select “Advanced Properties.”
5. Create the field/widget. Once you have filled out all the information, click the “Create” button at the bottom of the window. You will be able to see all fields and widgets in this section listed at the bottom of the section.

Advanced Properties

Click on “Advanced Properties” in the “Create New Fields Template” to view additional options for your field. You are able to change the placement of the field, give fields conditional visibility, and make fields required, locked, or obsolete.

The row number and order in row will determine where this field will appear in the section. When a new field is added, the system will assign it to the bottom of the list of fields. If you’d like to move this field further up, create space by clicking the down arrows next to the fields/widgets, which will increase the row number for that row and all rows below it. Not all rows need to be filled. The “order in row” will place that field/widget horizontally in a row, from left to right. Some widget types—DocGen and Fusion buttons—must be on their own row. 

If your field needs to appear under specific circumstances, click on the dropdown menu that reads “Always” and choose the field that you’d like this information to be dependent on. Once you click this, you’ll be able to choose either “Equals” or “Contains” from a dropdown, and then choose the option or keyword that will trigger this field to appear. For example, in the gif below, the new field “How Many” appears when the question “Are there multiple defendants?” has the answer “Yes.” 

Requiring a field will prevent users from saving the project section until that field has been filled. Widgets cannot be made required. Required fields will appear with a red asterisk next to them in a project.

If a user attempts to save without filling out a required field, they will receive an error instructing them to fill out the field, with a link to the field they need to fill out. 

To avoid users filling out nonsense information simply to be able to save the section, required fields should be used sparingly and are best utilized for field types which already specify the information type, like Yes/No fields. If you require a field with contingent visibility, the field will not be required until it is visible.

Locking a field prevents all guests and non-admin team members from being able to edit that field while allowing them to view the information. A field cannot be both required and locked, so required fields will not be able to be locked. 

Marking a field obsolete means the field will disappear if empty. If any existing projects already have data entered, the data will still be displayed but will appear in strikethrough. This is commonly used when a data point is no longer needed but cannot be removed to avoid the risk of deleting existing data in any of your cases.

Vitals

The next tab in the Customs Editor is the “Vitals” section. Click on this tab to create, remove, or edit the vitals for a project type.

Creating a Vital

1. Open a vital. Click on the “Create New Vital” button on the top right, or click on an existing vital to make an edit. 
   
   
2. Choose the field. Click on the magnifying glass icon next to the “Field” field to select which field of data you want to display.
3. Override with title (optional). If you'd like to customize the displayed name for this vital, enter in the new display name in the “Title Override” textbox. Vitals will default to the field name if a title is not selected.
4. Set up contingent visibility. If you’d like this vital to appear only when a specific section is visible, enter this section into the box next to “Visibility.”
5. Save. Click the “Save” button at the bottom right to save the changes and refresh the page to see the changes in a project.

Managing Vitals

Any vital can be reordered, removed, or edited at any time. To reorder a vital, use the up and down arrows next to the vitals. To remove a vital, click on a vital to open the settings and click “Remove this Vital” in the bottom left. To edit a vital, simply click on a vital to open the settings and change anything needed.

Phases

You're also able to make edits to the phases of a project type in the Customs Editor. You can rename, add, reorder, and remove phases. Before creating and editing phases, it is recommended that you read the articles on Using Taskflow.

Creating a Phase

1. Open a phase. Click on the “Create New Phase” button on the top right. This will open the “Create a New Phase” window.
   
2. Choose the name. Fill in the “Phase Name” field to name the phase.
3. Set up contingent visibility. If you’d like this phase to appear only when a specific section is visible, enter this section into the box next to “Visibility.”
4. Save. Click the “Save” button at the bottom right to save the changes and refresh the page to see the changes in a project.

Managing Phases

Any phase can be reordered or removed except the “Archived” phase, and any phase can be renamed. To reorder a phase, in the phase tab, hover over the far left of a phase and click and drag. To remove a phase, simply click on the phase to open the window and click “Remove Phase” in the bottom left. To rename a phase, click on a phase to open the window and change the text in the “Phase Name” box.

Folders

The last tab in the Customs Editor is the Folders tab. In this tab, users can create a template of folder organization to organize their documents section for any new project of the same project type.

Any new project will automatically have this template of folders in the Docs tab. Changing the template in the folders tab will not change the folder structure for already-existing projects. After the project is created, users can change the folders on a project-to-project basis within the Docs Section.

Setting Up a Folder Template

1. Navigate to the “Create Folder Button.” In the Customs Editor, click the “Folders” tab. Click the “Create Folder Template” button.
2. Name the top level folder. The project's top level folder name must contain either {{Name}}, {{ClientName}}, {{ProjectID}}, or {{UniqueKey}} to be unique.
3. Create subfolders. Add additional folders in the “New Folder” box by clicking the folder where the new folder should be placed, typing in the new folder name, and clicking the checkmark. Below the “New Folder” box, there is a list of “Replacement Fields,” which will substitute information specific to the project when used as folder names.
   
4. Make any changes you need. To rename any folders, hover your mouse over that folder and click on the adjacent pencil icon. To remove any folders, hover your mouse over that folder and click the X icon. 
5. Save. When you have finished, click the “Save” button in the top right corner.

Mastering the Customs Editor

Watch the video below for an overview of how to use the Customs Editor tool from one of our experts.