Administrator Guide 2017
ItemType - Alternative customer
From Add Item in Template Maintenance select the an Alternative customer item button shown here.

From Add Item in Template Maintenance select the an Alternative customer item button shown here.

Alternative customer allows a customer to be chosen which is not the main customer associated with the form (ie. it is an additional prompt for a customer).

This can be useful where an organisation does work for multiple clients at a given premises. In that case the system may be set up to have all locations grouped under one "dummy" customer. A job would be fundamentally assigned based on the location. The alternative customer would then be used to record the client who was to be billed or who requested the work. This setup prevents having to create multiple copies of the same location on the system, one for each customer who has a relationship to that location.
Unable to show how an Alternative customer item might look on a device.

Unable to show how an Alternative customer item might look on a device.

Main

 Main screen for creating/amending an Alternative customer item
Main screen for creating/amending an Alternative customer item

Main screen for creating/amending an Alternative customer item
Question This is the text “label” that is specifying the information that needs to be entered or the question to be answered. Although this is not necessarily a question in all cases, Question is used as the general term to cover the text shown next to an input field. The text should be as short as possible whilst still being self-explanatory. Over-long questions take up a lot of space on PDA screens with their restricted size, so try and make them concise. This text should be an aid to help guide the user through the screen. Any more explanatory text can be made available as “Auditor’s notes” or “Full question text”.
Mandatory

Tick this box if the question is mandatory and leave it blank if it is optional.  This will depend on whether the answer to this question is critical to the data that is being collected, such as signature to confirm customer acceptance.

Formatting

 Formatting options for an Alternative customer item.
Formatting options that can be applied to an Alternative customer item .

Formatting options that can be applied to an Alternative customer item .
Full screen width?

This option is usually used in conjunction with multi-line text boxes, giving the user a full-width long text box in which to enter information. This value overrides any formatting set for the section.

Advanced

 Advanced features of an Alternative customer item.
Advanced features that can be applied to an Alternative customer item.

Advanced features that can be applied to an Alternative customer item.
Item name from device workflow

Enter the device workflow (progress of data between forms within the same ‘job’ – ie triggered by preceding form) item name used in previous forms that contains the alternative customer.  This item will need to have been set up as an alternative customer item type – both on current and previous form.

Alternative customer allows device or server user to change the customer for the current location – this is used when multiple customers can be involved in jobs at individual locations but it would be unmanageable to set the system up with each combination of customer and location.
Don't keep previous result when part of a document lifecycle

Tick this box if you DO NOT wish data to be collected in this template item to be copied to any jobs created directly from the original form.  This is useful for a repeated task (such as booking in/out a rental item or repeated delivery) where the data remains the same but a sign-off is required so this box may be ticked for Date, Surname and Signature.  Please note that if a transformation option is applied to the newly created job, this setting may be over-ruled.
Additional display information for list items Enter text and calculated values that will be displayed as read only on the device screen.
Item flag

Template item flags are used to apply display classes to template item in a consistent and efficient way.  They are set up in a system list called Template item flags and might be given names such as Danger so the text appears in red, Disclaimer for smaller text, Long answer to give extra space to the answer.  This means that changing the display class can be done in one place rather than on all template items.
*Unique name

A unique name must exist for everything in a magic5 template.  It is so important that magic5 pre-fills the prompt with a non-meaningful name which it will use by default.  This does not need to be changed.

However, if the data associated with the unique name is to be used elsewhere (for example as part of a calculation, imported or exported, or carried over to a new job), it is helpful to use a meaningful name (such as RefNo, QuantityOrdered, ItemTotal, ContactName, ReasonForReferral) and this meaningful name must be entered before the template is used with real data.

If the unique name is changed at a later date, existing data will not be lost but it may no longer be accessible by magic5, in which case it cannot be displayed, used in calculations or exported.  It is therefore recommended that this is done only as a last resort and that the original template is duplicated before changes are made - this means that existing data can still be retrieved if necessary.  If in any doubt, please contact magic5 support for the best way to deal with this.

Display conditions (advanced)

 Display conditions for a template item.
Display conditions that can be applied to a template item.

Display conditions that can be applied to a template item.
Only show when the following condition is true (1)-(4) Enter a conditional statement that affects whether the input item is displayed on the device such as whether a previous answer has been yes or no.
For more help on using Display Conditions view the how-to guide.
Record results when section isn't displayed Tick this box if you wish results to be recorded when section isn't displayed.
See Also

Templates

Template
Item type