Create custom fields

Custom fields extend Onplana’s built-in forms with whatever your organization tracks: a cost center on every project, an acceptance criteria field on tasks, a department on proposals. Fields defined here are organization-wide and appear on the chosen form in every project.

Field types

Twelve types are available:

• Text and Multi-line for free-form entries
• Number and Currency for numeric values
• Date for calendar dates
• Dropdown (one choice) and Multi-select (several choices), each with a list of options you define
• Checkbox for yes/no flags
• URL / Link, Email, and Phone for typed contact and reference values
• Rating for a 1-to-5 star score

Where a field appears

Every field is scoped to one entity type when you create it:

• Project form: shows when creating and editing projects.
• Task form: shows on tasks, and as optional columns in the project’s Grid view.
• Proposal: shows on governance proposals.

Create a field

1. Open Organization Settings, go to the Configuration tab, and open the Custom Fields section.

2. Add a field: give it a name, pick the type, and choose which form it belongs to (project, task, or proposal).

3. For Dropdown and Multi-select fields, enter the list of options users can pick from.

4. Save. The field is live on that form across the organization immediately.

By default, managing organization-wide custom fields requires the Portfolio Manager role or above. Like most permissions, your organization can tighten or loosen this in the permissions matrix.

Tip

Prefer Dropdown over Text whenever the values are a known set. Free-text fields collect five spellings of the same department within a month; a dropdown keeps the data filterable and reportable.

Fields for just one project

Sometimes a field only makes sense inside a single project and would be noise everywhere else. Those are created from within the project itself rather than in Organization Settings; see Scope custom fields to one project.

FAQs

What happens to existing data if I edit a field? Renaming a field or adding dropdown options is safe; values already entered stay attached. Deleting a field is blocked while values exist, so you cannot silently destroy data.

Do imported Microsoft Project plans bring their custom columns? Yes. Custom columns from an imported plan become custom fields, scoped to the imported project so they do not clutter the rest of the organization. See Import from Microsoft Project.

Can I make a custom field required? Yes. Each field definition has a required checkbox, and required fields show the usual asterisk on the form. The same Custom Fields section also lets admins control visibility and requirements for the built-in form fields.