how to add extra lookup contact fields to a contract?

[raynor]

We are about to start using the Contracts function.
But the business area would like to add some extra fields to the Contract page:

1. Business Contact
2. Technical Contact

They want these to be lookup fields - the ability to search through existing contacts, before linking them to the contact.

Is that hard, or does it involve extra relationships?
Can those two new contact fields be added to the display and edit layouts of Contracts - rather than appearing as a separate subpanel after saving the Contract?

cheers

v 6.1 Pro

[rafael.q.g@hotmail.com]

Yes it can be easialy added.
Basically you will need to create two fields fo type "relate" and associate them with contact module. And then include these fields in module layouts.

You can add these fields from studio (under admin area), and there you also can set them on detail/edit views.

[raynor]

That worked, in terms of seeing the data on the screen.

But when using the reports wizard to create reports, it will only show the contents of the field, as a link. It doesn't let us extract the actual contact details. ie, I can produce a report that I can export, but it only has the name. If I select Contacts within Contracts, it doesn't find any records at all.


Whereas the other way of doing things, treating contacts as a relationship rather than a related lookup field, lets you attach contacts down in the separate panel, and lets you extract the phone and email addresses in the report wizard. But it doesn't let you specify a role for that particular contract: you can only use the one role for the user.

Any way of getting the report wizard to extract lookup details?

cheers

[rafael.q.g@hotmail.com]

Unfortunately the reports module shows just fields which are stored on DB, so is not possible to have a function which dinamically reads the info from another module.

What you can do is duplicate the wanted contact fields on your module via a logic_hook, and set these fields as reportable. Then you can display it on your reports.

[raynor]

hi Rafael

That sounds like a nice way of doing it.

I've only done simple logic hooks - eg calculations within a module, before_save.

Any details available on how one would duplicate the data from another module?

cheers