Share a field across several units, or copy it to them
Define a field such as “Region” once and use it in several units with one definition. Or copy it as an independent field if you want to edit it freely.
The permission to share fields, and the permission to create units to copy
You need: The permission to share fields, and the permission to create units to copy
Steps
1
Open the field’s menu in its original unit.
2
Choose Use in Another Location, and pick the units in Select target units.
3
Press Attach Field.
The field shows in the chosen units, and any units that were skipped show with the reason.
4
To make an independent copy, choose Duplicate → To another unit in the field’s menu, pick the units in Copy to Units, add a Name Prefix (optional) if you want, and press Duplicate.
Share or copy?
Share
Copy
Definition
One for all
Independent in each unit
Adding an option
Shows in every unit
In one unit
Values
Separate for each unit
Separate
Order, group and hiding
Independent in each unit
Independent
A shared field has a home unit. In the other units you can reorder it, hide it and put it in a group, like any field.
Hiding a shared field in a unit hides it from that unit only. Deactivating it in its home unit hides it from all of them.
The tag is a shared field whose home is the Tasks unit, and it shows in every unit.
The Field Manager
It shows each field’s home unit and the units it shows in.
When copying
Relation fields aren’t copied. Visibility or required rules that depend on a field that doesn’t exist in the target unit are dropped from the copy, and reported.
If something goes wrong
What you see
Why
What to do
The unit was skipped because of a “column conflict”
It has a field that writes the same column.
Rename the field there, or copy the field instead of sharing it.
The shared field doesn’t show in the import
An old version of the page.
Refresh the page. Shared fields show in the mapping.
A real example
Shield Security Co.
The situation
A “City” field exists in Clients, Contracts and Visits, with different options in each.
What they did
They kept “City” in Clients and shared it with Contracts and Visits.
They deleted the two old copies after moving the values.
The result
A new city is added once, and it shows in all three units.
A made-up company, to show the idea. The numbers are rounded.
Good to know
You can’t share a field with a unit that has another field with the same column. The unit shows in the skipped list.
Copy to 50 units at most in one operation.
Up to 200 new columns in one copy operation (the number of fields × the number of units).
