Displaying the contents of user-defined fields in text
You can display the contents of user-defined fields that are associated with expanded tasks in your borders, by inserting them as fields into text boxes. When you load a border containing user-defined fields into Asta Powerproject, the fields are replaced by the information they represent, taken from the user-defined fields that are associated with the expanded task (or chart) that you are printing. This is useful as it means you can create user-defined fields to store whatever chart-specific information you want against each chart, and print it in an Powerdraw border. Note that this does not apply to borders that are used in Asta Easyplan, as Asta Easyplan does not support user-defined fields.
If you insert a user-defined field with an object type of anything other than Expanded Task, for example Task or User, nothing will print in the field; borders only print information from user-defined fields with an object type of Expanded Task.
There are two types of user-defined field: those created in Server Admin for Enterprise server-mounted projects, and those created in Asta Powerproject for standalone projects. You use the same method to include either type of user-defined field in a border.
As you can apply any name to user-defined fields, you must enter the user-defined field names manually into Powerdraw; you cannot select these fields from a menu.
To insert a user-defined field into a border:
- Click
. - Click on the border in the position at which you want to insert the user-defined field. A flashing vertical line, the text insertion point, appears on the border, indicating the position at which the information will appear.
- Enter the name of the user-defined field, enclosed within angled brackets. For example, if the user-defined field is called CHART_LOCATION, enter <CHART_LOCATION>.
If you have a number of group projects stored on an Enterprise server, each containing a number of subprojects, and you open one of the subprojects, you can display information that is stored in user-defined fields relating to the programme chart of each subproject, rather than the current chart that you are printing. To do this, enter an asterisk before the name of the user-defined field when you enter it as a field in a Powerdraw border.
For example, <CHART_LOCATION> prints information relating to the chart that you are printing; <*CHART_LOCATION> prints information relating to the programme chart of the subproject in which the current chart is located.