In the Organization's settings, you can create custom Element Types and Properties for your Workspaces to use.
There are 5 steps to successfully create Elements of custom types:
- Create & Configure the New Element Type
- Create Properties
- Add Properties to Your Custom Element Type
- Enable the Element Type for Your Workspace
- Create an Element of Your Type
- Limitations
Hint: There are a lot of hints in the Element Configuration interface that appear when hovering over the (?)-icons. Read those to get to know the functionality better!
Step 1a: Create an Element Type
- Navigate to your Organization's settings.
- Navigate to "Element Configuration"
- In the "Type Configuration" tab, hit "Add New Element"
- Give the type a name.
- Save the type.
Step 1b: Configure the New Element Type
- Add groups to your Element Type. Groups are containers that you can place properties into, and you can choose between a couple of different group types depending on what you want to place in them and how they should look.
- Then add already existing Properties (like ratings or dropdowns) to your Element Type.
Your Element Type might now look something like this:
You can also pin some Properties to the header to be displayed there (see A below) and you can enable relations for your Element Type (see B below).
Note that the comments and Signals pages are currently always enabled for Element Types.
You can always reorder Properties within and across groups (see C below) as well as groups within and across columns (see D below) using drag and drop.
While you cannot completely remove Properties from an Element Type at the moment (someone might already have entered a value for that Property...), you can hide Properties (see E below) and entire groups (see F below). You can also remove completely empty groups.
Step 2: Create Properties
The next step is to create your own custom Properties to use for your Element Type.
- Head to the "Property Configuration".
- Click on "Add New Property".
- Choose one of the different types of Properties we provide. In the example we are adding a Property for a custom segmentation ("Hierarchical Dropdown", but a regular "Dropdown" would also work) for the Radar, and a custom Rating criterion.
4. Name your Property.
5. Add some options (including some deeper down in the hierarchy).
6. Save your Property.
Note that the different Property Types will have different configuration options. Just try creating some!
Step 3: Add Properties to Your Custom Element Type
You now have an Element Type and some Properties. It's time to bring them together!
- Navigate back to the "Type Configuration" and choose your Element Type.
- Add the Properties you have just created to groups they are compatible with.
- Save your changes.
The Element Type with your custom Properties is now available for all Workspaces in the Organization.
Step 4: Enable the Element Type for Your Workspace
In a last step, you now need to add your Element Type to the Workspace(s) you want to be able to see it in.
To get to the Workspace settings, either use the gear-icon in the Workspaces picker (see A above) or...
1. Navigate to the "Workspaces" list.
2. Hit the pen-icon to edit a Workspace.
In the Workspace's settings,
3. Navigate to the "Element Configuration" tab.
4. Choose the Element Type to add to the Workspace and flip the toggle.
5. Save the changes.
Note that blueprint Element Types can not be extended for the entire Organization. This can be done on the Workspace-level together with the possibility to further customize Elements for every Workspace individually.
Step 5: Create an Element of Your Type
You are now ready to create an Element of your custom type!
- Head to Explorer.
- Click on the Create-button.
- Choose your custom Element Type & add the required information.
- Publish the Element!
Now, go ahead and create a custom Radar view for that new Element Type!
Limitations
There are a few limitations in Element Configuration that are worth mentioning. These ensure the integrity of the content. Most of these limitations will be addressed with future releases.
Properties
- Once created, a Property can currently not be deleted. They can be hidden from all Element Types, of course.
- Once created, options on Dropdowns, Hierarchical Dropdowns, and Steps cannot be removed. They can be reordered, new ones can be added and labels can be changed, however.
- Once created, options on Ratings can be neither removed nor reordered. New ones can be added and labels can be changed, however.
- Once created, a Property cannot be set as required. The required-flag can be lifted, however.
- Minimum and maximum values for Number and Numerical Rating Properties cannot be made more restrictive. They can be made less restrictive, however.
Element Types
- Once changes are saved, added Properties cannot be removed from an Element Type. They can be hidden from view, however.
- Element Types can only be deleted if there are no Elements of that type anywhere in the System.