Custom fields

You can create as many fields as you want for each data type, where each field:

• is either optional or mandatory
• can be restricted to users with certain permissions or roles
• can be described with a name and help text
• has a maximum length of 65535 character

The custom-field data is then available in:

• Data-tables will display all visible fields
• Exports (HTML and Spreadsheets include all visible fields)
• Timesheet exports (include visible timesheet fields)
• API (collections and entities)
• Invoice templates (custom templates have access to all fields)

You can change the “weight” of custom-fields, so they show up in the order you define.

Be aware:

• Sensitive data can be configured as “invisible”, so it will not show up in the previously mentioned places
• Weekly-hours does NOT support custom fields
• User preferences (custom fields for users) are not exported by the API (this is a limitation in the core application)
• User preferences have a maximum length of 250 character

Custom fields can be of the following type: string, integer, number, duration, money, language, currency, country, color, date, datetime, email, textarea, invoice template, checkbox, choice-list, auto-tags

Field types

The custom fields will be shown on the “create and edit entity” forms and can have the following types:

Input field type	Description
string	simple text field
integer	number without decimal point
number	number with decimal places
duration	enter a duration in various formats
money
language	dropdown of languages, shown in the user language
currency	dropdown of currencies, shown in the user language
country	dropdown of countries, shown in the user language
color	browser specific input element to select a color
date	type a date or select it from the datepicker
datetime	type a date and time or select it from the picker
email	enter an email address (with basic validation)
url	URL field
textarea	multi-line text field
invoice template	dropdown
checkbox	on/off
choice-list	drop-down with custom entries
auto-tags	automatic timesheet tagging through assignment on activities/projects/custo mers

Checkbox

Use the value 1 as default value for a pre-checked box or 0 for an unchecked box.

If a checkbox is marked as mandatory, the user has to check it in order to submit the form.

Choice-list

“Choice-list” is a different word for “Select-box” or “Drop-down”. You have to add the entries as comma-separated list in the Default value field. For example a list consisting of fruits would look like this: Banana,Apple,Orange,Pineapple,Peach.

As the first entry is pre-selected, you can add an empty field to the dropdown by starting the list with a leading , like this: ,Banana,Apple,Orange,Pineapple,Peach. Combined with the mandatory flag, this will force your users to select an entry from the list to be able to submit the form.

Choice list is also capable to configure title and values independently. Let’s assume you have non-human friendly IDs for the value, but want to show a human friendly text, you can separate each value from its title by using a pipe | character: ,01|Banana,02|Apple,Orange,foo|Pineapple,0815|Peach.

Invoice template

A select box that is useful if you want to generate automatic invoices via command line / cronjobs.

The Kimai command bin/console kimai:invoice:create supports invoice templates via custom-field (see docs). The option parameter --template-meta takes the internal name of the custom field that will identify the invoice template to be used.

Auto-Tags

This advanced feature allows to assign certain tags to Activity, Project and Customer.

Once you assigned such an auto-tag e.g to a Project, each future timesheet that is linked to the selected Project will be assigned the selected auto-tags. A user cannot remove these tags, they are automatically assigned after the form (to save the timesheet) was submitted.

Default value

Many fields support setting a Default value.

As the type of the default value and therefor the input field depends on the selected Field type, this input field only appears after saving the new custom-field and then re-opening its configuration.

Visibility

You can limit visibility to user roles. If you want to use custom roles, you have to follow the documented rules for role naming:

• Completely uppercase
• Starting with ROLE_
• For the default roles, you have to use the technical name, e.g. ROLE_TEAMLEAD instead of the translated name Teamlead

So a role name like Manager does not work, it must be ROLE_MANAGER.

Customer, Project and Activity

You cannot limit the visibility of fields by Customer, Project or Activity when creating a new timesheet. Because at the moment the form is opened, it is unknown which Customer, Project and Activity the user chooses.

The same can applies to the custom fields:

• Project, if there is no pre-selection (e.g. creation with the Customer detail screen)
• Activity, if there is no pre-selection (e.g. creation with the Project detail screen)

Once you open an existing record, you can now see the custom field, as its visibility can be detected.

Permissions

Permission Name	Description
configure_meta_fields	allows to administrate the custom field definitions

By default, these are assigned to each user with the role ROLE_SUPER_ADMIN.