All About Data Fields

This page covers:

• How-to Video
• What's a data field?
• Where are data fields created?
• How do data fields work within and across projects?
• Who can create, remove, edit, and delete data fields?
• Who can post data into a data field?
• How to create (or add) a new data field at the project (or recipe level)?
• How to create (or add) a data field at the task level?
• How to remove a data field from a task or a project?
• How to globally rename a data field label or change its field type?
• How to globally delete a data field?
• How do data fields work with Recipes?
• For data field reporting, see the Data Download help article.

How-to Video

What's a data field?

Note that the data field feature is only available on the Enterprise plan.

A project "data field" is for capturing data on a project that may later be used in a report showing data across a portfolio of projects.

IMPORTANT: Data fields are for capturing project-level data, not task-level. You can enter the data on a task for convenience, but if that same data field is used on more than one task, the data will be exactly the same for each task.

This is important to understand. If you add the same data field across two tasks in the same project, they will both have the same values. So, keep in mind that data fields is meta data for the project.

An example data field could be a currency field to enter the project budget, a text field for entering info on the project's products, or a date field to note a go-live date. You can add data fields in a project or in a recipe that will then be used for projects.

A data field created on a project or recipe is stored at the organization level so the same data field object can be used again across different projects or recipes in that organization.

You can run data field reports on your data fields from the reports page.

If you use the exact same data field on multiple tasks across the project, any data posted to that data field will show in all of them. Data fields with the same label all point to the same data field. Also, any data field added at the task level is automatically added at the project level data field list view.

Data field types are:

• Text
• Currency
• Date
• Yes/No
• Selection list (design your own list)

Where are data fields created?

Data fields can be created in the following places.

• Project or recipe configuration page 
• Project or recipe task
• Organization configuration page (under the Settings/Workspaces page)

Note that all data fields created in projects or recipes are stored at the organization level. That makes it easy to reuse common data field labels. This will help with data field reporting where you can report on the same data field across projects in an organization.

 See steps below for how to create a data field.

How do data fields work within and across projects?

About data field labels:

• All data field labels are stored at the organization level. All of their data are store at the project level. That makes it easy to reuse common data field labels. This will help with data field reporting where you can report on the same data field across projects in an organization.
• When you create a new data field in a project and click on the data field line, the dropdown will give you all previously created data fields (if any). Let's say in your report you want to track "Project Budget" across multiple projects. You would create that data field once and it remembers it for the all other projects to use. This is nice since it avoids the problem where someone in one project calls it "Project Budget" and someone in another project calls it "Project Costs". In that scenario, Pie will look at them as two unrelated data fields because they were created separately with slightly different labeling.

About the data you entered in a data field:

• It’s important to note that the data entered in any data field is always project-level data regardless if they were added to a task or added to the project’s configuration page.
• For example, let's say you have a field called “Project Budget” on a project task and then you add that same exact field to a second task. If you enter “50,000” in either of the two tasks, the number “50,000” will show up in the other task. Changing one will change the other since they are both pointing to the same field in the Pie database.
• However, if you add the same exact data field label “Project Budget” to a different project, that field's data starts fresh as empty, so it will not show “50,000” from the other project. This different project will have its own data field data in the database for that project. Feel free to email us at support@pie.me if you have questions as it could be a little complex to understand at first.

Who can create, remove, edit, or delete data fields?

• People with the permission Project Admin, Recipe Admin, or Organization Admin can create new data fields in their project or recipe.
• A person who was the creator of a data field can edit or delete that data field.
• A Project Admin person can remove a data field from their project or recipe.
• An Organization Admin person can edit or delete a data field.
• Team members cannot create, remove, edit, or delete data fields, but they can post/change content data in the data field record.

Who can post data into a data field?

• Team members (except for the Limit permission user) can post or change data in an existing data field.
• They can do that from their assigned task if it has a data field or from the project configuration page. Click the description icon and then select the DATA tab to the right of DESCRIPTION.
• Project Admins and Workspace Admins can also post data.

How to create or add a new data field at the project or recipe level?

1. As a Project Admin (or a Recipe Admin), go to the project configuration page. If your project is open, you get there by clicking the pencil icon in the upper right of the project page.
2. Click the description action button if not yet selected and then click the DATA tab to the right of DESCRIPTION as shown.
   
   
3. Click the Add Data Field button.
4. Click inside that popup field bar to see if there are any existing data fields to select from or you can start type the label to see if there's a match. As a rule, always try to find an existing match even if the label is not exactly as you want. This will help keep everything together for analytics reports.
5. If you see an existing data field, select it. If not, type your new data field label and hit enter or tap the blue enter line if you're on a mobile device.
6. This will open a draft data field. You can retype the label if needed. The default data field type is Text, but you can 
7. Click the Field Type dropdown and choose the type you want to use.
8. Click CREATE to create it.
9. If you chose to use Selection type, you will see lines where you can start entering you labels. Enter a label then hit return or tap into the next line. Click create when done.
10. Once your data field is created, you can drag it to another position for reordering among other data fields.
11. When ready, click the green UPDATE PROJECT button to submit your changes.

How to create or add a data field at the task level?

1. As a Project Admin (or a Recipe Admin), go to your task and expand it.
2. Click the description action button if not yet selected and then click the DATA tab to the right of DESCRIPTION.
3. Click the Add Data Field button.
4. Click inside that popup field bar to see if there are any existing data fields to select from or you can start type the label to see if there's a match. As a rule, always try to find an existing match even if the label is not exactly as you want. This will help keep everything together for analytics reports.
5. If you see an existing data field, select it. If not, type your new data field label and hit enter or tap the blue enter line if you're on a mobile device.
6. This will open a draft data field. You can retype the label if needed. The default data field type is Text, but you can 
7. Click the Field Type dropdown and choose the type you want to use.
8. Click CREATE to create it.
9. If you chose to use Selection type, you will see lines where you can start entering you labels. Enter a label then hit return or tap into the next line. Click create when done.
10. Once your data field is created, you can drag it to another position for reordering among other data fields.
11. When ready, click the green UPDATE button to submit your changes.

How to remove a data field from a task or a project?

Removing a data field from a task is different than removing it from the project. Removing a data field from a task only removes it from that task. If that data field is used in more than one task, remove it from one task will not remove it from the others. If that data field is in one task and you remove it, it will still be displayed on the project configuration page. If you want to remove a data field from the entire project, then remove it from the project configuration (or recipe configuration page) page.

Removing the data field only from a task:

1. If you are the Project Admin (or Recipe Admin), you can remove a data field.
2. Go to the data field in the task
3. Click on the pencil icon to the right of the data field bar.
4. Click the remove button. This will only remove it from that one task.
5. The data field will still be on the project including any posted data it may have, so see next steps if you need to remove it from the project.

Removing the data field completely from the project:

1. If you are the Project Admin (or Recipe Admin), you can remove a data field.
2. Go to the data field in the project (or recipe) configuration page.
3. Click on the pencil icon to the right of the data field bar.
4. Click the remove button. This will only remove it completely from the project including all tasks they may be using the data field.
5. All posted data, if any, will also be removed and deleted.

How to globally rename a data field label or change its field type?

1. If you are the data field's creator or you are the Organization Admin, you can edit its label or change its data type.
2. Go to the data field location and click its pencil icon. 
3. Make the changes and then click UPDATE. This will update it globally across your organization if it's used by other projects or recipes.
4. If you are the Organization Admin, a great way to globally update a data field is to go to Settings/Workspace and then open the organization description, click the DATA tab, find your data field and make global edits there.

How to globally delete a data field?

1. If you are the data field's creator or you are the Organization Admin, you can delete it.
2. Go to the data field location and click its pencil icon. 
3. Click the delete button. This will delete it globally across your organization if it's used by other projects or recipes. This will also delete any posted data, so please be careful.

How do Data Fields work with Recipes?

On a recipe, data fields work the same as on the project in terms of creating, editing, and removing or deleting. The only difference is you cannot post data inside the data field. That can only be done at the project level since different projects will be posting different data for the same data field. Creating a project from a recipe will copy its data fields, which then can be used to post data by team members.