Other Field Properties

In the last two steps, we learned about Other Field Details. In this step, we’ll explore Other Field Properties.

Display Name and Name

The Display Name of a field is used in the following locations:

• Default label for the field when it is added to a form

• Column name when the field is added to a view

• Name of the field in Advanced Find queries

The Display Name can be modified after the field is created.

The Name of a field is used as the column name in the Microsoft SQL Server database. The name cannot be changed after the field is created.

Field Requirement

When fields are added to an entity, you must decide whether users should always provide a value for that field or if entering a value should remain optional. You must assess whether the field is important to how a record will be located in a query, displayed in a report or dashboard, or whether the information is important so that business processes can be followed correctly. By selecting the field requirement level, you can make sure that the users enter values that are required for the correct use of the Power Platform system.

Three requirement levels can be specified for fields. These requirement levels are enforced when data is entered in forms. However, these requirement levels are not enforced anywhere else. The requirement levels include the following:

• Optional – The field can be left blank or it can be populated. This is the default setting.

• Business Recommended – The field can be completed. However, ideally, it should be populated. For example, on a Contact record, the First Name field has a required level of Business Recommended. Business Recommended fields are displayed with a blue + symbol next to their label.

• Business Required – The field must be completed. Business Required fields are displayed with a red * symbol next to their label. If the field is left blank and a user tries to save the record an error message will be displayed on the screen and as a symbol and will also show text next to the field.

Business Required fields cannot be removed from forms or entities unless their requirement level is changed to Business Recommended or Optional. Some fields are required by the system for specific entities and cannot be removed, for example, the start and end date and time of an Appointment record.

Searchable

Fields are available for searching in the Power Platform by using the Advanced Find tool regardless of whether they are displayed on a form. To hide fields that are not used (typically not displayed on any forms), you can change the value of the Searchable property. Fields that have this property set to No are not displayed in Advanced Find search lists.

For fields that are not used by the business, it is recommended that you set the Searchable property to No, to simplify the Advanced Find feature for users.

Field Security

Field security is used to add another level of security that is applied to fields. By default, if a user is a member of a security role that lets the user read an entity, the user can read all fields in that entity. In some cases, you might want to restrict access to specific fields.

For example, if the User entity is customised by adding a Salary field, you might want to prevent the employees who do not work in the Human Resources or Finance departments from viewing the data in the field. To achieve this, the Field Security property can be made available on the field and a Field Security Profile can be created.

Auditing

When this property is enabled, changes that are made to the values in the field will be audited, if auditing is also enabled available for the entity and at the organisation level.

Description

The content of the Description property is displayed as an infotip in the Power Platform user interface (UI) when a user points to a field label on a form. If the user has a touchscreen device, he or she can tap the field name to view this same tip. You can use the description property of a field to provide more help or guidance to the user about how to complete the data, or why this field is required. If there is no description, the infotip displays the field label instead (this uses the field label from the form, which might be different from the field name).

Next up, let’s complete a poll on Data Modelling.