Adding a Custom Field to a Form in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

Posted on: February 12, 2018 | By: Jarrod Kraemer | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365

Authored by: Dave Occhionero

For those users who have asking about adding a custom field to a form in AX or D365, we have good news.  Microsoft has finally released this functionality, and it does not require a developer’s assistance.  The release was recently announced, and the AXUG community had a fantastic webinar from Andre Arnaud de Calavon (Microsoft MVP) that showcased the functionality. 

Availability

Currently, the feature is only available for customers participating in the CAAP plan.  This functionality soon will be included in a general availability release.

Setup

Adding a custom field will now be part of the personalization screen in D365.  The personalization screen has always been responsible for hiding/showing columns, rearranging your form layout, and even renaming column headers.   This added functionality seamlessly integrates with that all too familiar personalize form.  The first screen shot demonstrates how to add a field, and you can see the supported custom field types from second screenshot.  Once you have determined the type of field you want to add, you are basically done with the setup of the new field.  The only additional work required would be adding a string length (in characters) for a text field type, or providing a list of appropriate values for the picklist field type.

Once you exit the personalization, the field will be visible on your form.  You will be able to populate it, checkmark it, or select a value in it.  As an added bonus, customized fields can be added to existing D365 forms, and they can also be added to any newly developed forms. 

Andre Arnaud de Calavon – AXUG presentation

Andre Arnaud de Calavon – AXUG presentation

Security

As is the case with many features and functionality in D365, you may be concerned with who has access to these changes.  Fortunately, the only roles who have this ability are the system administrator and the runtime customization power user.  This limits who has the power to make these customizations. 

Andre Arnaud de Calavon – AXUG presentation

 

Another feature contained in the System Administration module, allows you to grant access to the customized fields.   You can apply the customization to all users, a group of users defined by a security role, or a named user.  This takes the AX/D365 standard approach of All, Group, Table.

 

Andre Arnaud de Calavon – AXUG presentation

Audit

These new fields allow the out of the box database logging functionality to work with them.  You will easily be able to see which users created, modified, or deleted information from these fields.  Is audit requesting a list of all customized fields on a form?  Simply look at Field names on the form.  All customized fields will have a “_Custom” suffix attached to them.

Andre Arnaud de Calavon – AXUG presentation

This functionality has been a need for quite some time and it is exciting to see it on the brink of a full release into the Microsoft community. 

Note: During the presentation a user asked if these fields work with Microsoft Flow.  At the time of the presentation this scenario was not tested.  Check back later to see the results of that testing!

For additional information please feel free to reach out to us at info@loganconsulting.com or (312) 345-8817. 

All the best!
Logan Consulting
www.loganconsulting.com