Course custom field settings

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When creating a course custom field you can configure the following settings.

Common settings

Setting

Description

Notes

Full name

The complete title of the custom field.

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Short name (must be unique)

The abbreviated name of the custom field, which can be used for display purposes.

Custom fields will appear as options on the Edit item screen for position items.

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Description

Add a description to explain the purpose of the custom field.

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Is this field required?

When set to Yes, the field is compulsory.

Note that this setting cannot be changed for Decimal input and Integer input custom fields, as it’s important that empty strings are not stored for these field types.

Is this field locked?

When set to Yes, the field only displays the information set when the field was set up.

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Should the data be unique?

When set to Yes, the field only accepts unique values.

Does not appear for the File or URL custom field types.

Hidden on the settings page?

When set to Yes, the field is not displayed on the skill framework overview page.

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Checkbox

Setting

Description

Notes

Checked by default

When set to Yes, the checkbox will be checked by default.

When set to No, the checkbox will not be checked by default.

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Date/time

Setting

Description

Notes

Start year

The earliest year you can use. 

-

End year

The most recent (future) year you can use. 

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Include time?

Tick to include a time. 

-

No default date value

Tick to not pre-populate the field with a date value.

The Date/Time custom field type automatically sets a default value. To ensure mandatory Date/Time fields are truly required, Tick to not pre-populate the field, forcing users to choose a date manually.

Decimal input

Setting

Description

Notes

Default value

The number that will appear in the field by default.

-

Minimum value

The lowest value that will be accepted.

-

Maximum value

The highest value that will be accepted.

-

Step

The accepted increments for values in this field. For example, if this is set to 0.5 then the field will accept values such as -1.0, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, etc.

-

Decimal points

The number of decimal points that the field will accept.

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File

Choosing this custom field creates a file upload field. There are no specific settings for this field type. 

Integer input

Setting

Description

Notes

Default value

The number that will appear in the field by default.

-

Minimum value

The lowest value that will be accepted.

-

Maximum value

The highest value that will be accepted.

-

Step

The accepted increments for values in this field. For example, if this is set to 5 then the field will accept values such as -5, 0, 5, 10, 15, etc.

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Location

Setting

Description

Notes

Default address

Optionally enter a default address to be displayed. 

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Default map size

Choose from:

  • Small

  • Medium

  • Large

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Default map view

Choose from:

  • Map

  • Satellite

  • Map & satellite (hybrid)

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Default display

Choose from:

  • Map & address

  • Map

  • Address

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Set map location

You can set the map location using the address above (if provided), or search for an address, town or city.

If you want to refine the location of the pin, you can do so by dragging and dropping it.

Please check that your site adheres to the Google Maps JavaScript API Terms Of Service before changing the view to include a map. We strongly recommend you get a Google Maps JavaScript API Key or a Client ID and set it within Totara.

Menu of choices

Setting

Description

Notes

Menu option (one per line)

Enter the menu options that will appear in the dropdown box.

Only enter one option per line.

-

Default value

Set the default value that will appear in the dropdown box. The default value must appear in the menu options above.

Leave blank if there is no default entry required.

-

Multi-select

Setting

Description

Notes

Menu option (and icons)

Enter the multi-select options (and icons) that will appear in the dropdown box.

There is a text box to enter the options, alongside this you can then click Choose icon link to browse for image with the file picker. For each option you can also click Make selected by default to select that option as default (the user would have to unselect it if they do not want to select it). You can add additional menu options by clicking Add another option.

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Text area

Setting

Description

Notes

Default value

The text that will appear in the text area by default. This could be instructions e.g. 'Enter your text here...' or a default answer value.

Leave this field blank if no default text is required.

-

Columns

This setting sets the width of the text area.

If a text editor plugin is applied to the text area, the width will be determined by the plugin, and changing this value may have no effect.

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Rows

This setting sets the height of the text area custom field (the number of lines).

If a text editor plugin is applied to the text area, the height will be determined by the plugin, and changing this value may have no effect.

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Text input

Setting

Description

Notes

Default value

The text that will appear in the text field by default.

Leave this field blank if no default text is required.

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Display size

Sets the number of characters that will be displayed in the text field.

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Maximum length

Sets the maximum number of characters the text field will accept.

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Regular expression validation

A regular expression that will be used to ensure entered text is in the expected format. For example, /^[0-9]{3}$/ will ensure the text consists of exactly three numbers.

This validation is performed only when submitting forms with custom fields. Current data is not affected after validation is changed.

For more information on regular expressions please refer to the PHP PCRE regular expression documentation.

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Description of regular expression validation format

Add a description message explaining the required format to users.

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URL

Setting

Description

Notes

Default URL

Enter a default website address. 

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Default text

Default link text to be displayed. If empty, the URL will be used.

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Open in a new window

Enable this setting to open the link in a new window. 

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