About Default Field Values on Custom Forms
Keep the following rules in mind when you apply default field values to fields on custom forms:
Default field values established at the form level on custom forms are in addition to module defaults established.
If you established default values at the module level in the Setup module, the module-level default values apply to all forms within that module. This means:
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Fields that do not have form-level default values are populated with default field values established at the module level.
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Default field values established at the form level override module-level default values where those field values overlap.
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Fields that do not have default values established at either level remain empty until they are manually populated by the user.
Consider the following scenario as an example of form-level default values overriding module-level default values:
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You established a default value for the Shop field at the Assets module level, but you want a different Shop code to be defaulted for a specific group of users.
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To accomplish this, you could create a custom form for this specific group of users and default the Shop field value to the special Shop code.
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When a user from the group described above selects the custom form, the Shop field value will be populated with the Shop code that was defaulted on the form level for their custom form.
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For all other users, the Shop field is defaulted based on the Assets module-level default.
The exception to the guidelines above is when using a form in Query mode or with the Quick Close feature. In both of these cases, only form-level default values are applied.
Default field values are also applied to records updated in the Mass Edit tools (for example, Work Order Mass Edit). You can remove these default values by clearing the field you do not want to update.
Default field values cannot be applied to a record only in Edit mode.
While the Form Designer allows you to disable the Update All Modes feature, if you select the Edit button and then establish default field values, these default values will not update existing records created with a different form and later opened in Edit (for example, Asset Edit) with the form on which you applied default values.
The exception to this rule is in the Quick Close feature, where field value defaults do update existing field values in existing records.
Default field values are also applied to records updated in the Mass Edit tools (for example, Work Order Mass Edit). You can remove these default values by clearing the field you do not want to update.
Default field values can only be applied to a new record in New/Create mode.
To apply default field values to a new record, you need to create the record with the form on which the defaults exist.
Default field values can only be applied to a new record when creating it, prior to clicking Save.
Once you click Save for a new record, no new default values are added to the form, regardless of whether the form's default values were changed after the record was saved. Field values are not updated by a form's default values, once the record goes from being in New/Create mode to being in Edit mode.
Switching forms prior to clicking Save when creating a record might change the field values to the new form's default field values.
If you create a record with one form, add values to the fields, and then switch to a different form that has defaulted field values, TMS will ask you if you want the edits and defaults you already have in place to carry over to the new form you selected.
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If you click Yes, TMS will ignore the field values that are defaulted on the new form.
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If you click No, TMS will overwrite the existing field values with the defaulted field values from the new form. This also means that values you have entered already, even if they are not defaulted on the new form, will be erased and need to be re-entered.
In either case, once you switch forms, we recommend that you verify all information in the fields on each tab, before clicking Save so that you can avoid any missing or incorrect field values that might have occurred during the switch.
If you want to default field values to be used only when a form is used in Query, you need to set the default values only in Query mode in the Form Designer.
To set default field values so that they apply to Query pages only, disable the Update All Modes option and select Query in the row of mode buttons. Then, you can select default field values that you want to be pre-populated only when a user is utilizing the form on a Query page.
Remember to enable the Update All Modes option again before making any changes to the custom form that you want to apply to the form regardless of what mode the form is being used with.
If you set up a field so that the default value applies to Query mode, you cannot set the defaulted field to Read Only as well. You also cannot set a field as required in Query mode.
