Customizing Data Table Fields

Each of the data tables in the database (Sites, Customers, Reservations, Transactions, etc.) are made up of a list of Fields.  The fields included in the tables are user-definable to a certain extent, adding to the flexibility of the software.  For instance, if you don't have a need to ever know about the Estimated Arrival Time for a reservation, you can disable that field and it will be removed from the database.  Besides saving space, the disabled field will be removed from the dialogs resulting in a cleaner view and slightly faster data entry.

Many of the fields are "Fixed", which means that they cannot be disabled.  These fields are crucial to the operation of the software, such as the reservation start date.  Others are optional and can be enabled or disabled as needed, as in the example above.  

There is a special category of fields called "Attributes", which appear in the Reservation table and the Sites table.  There are dozens of attributes, like "Has 50 Amp", "Waterfront", and "Pad Type".  These are used primarily for selecting Site Preferences for a reservation.  Once the preferences have been selected, the list of sites available will show only sites that have matching attributes.  Thus you can easily match a customer to a site that will meet his or her needs the best.  Many of the pre-defined attributes won't apply to your particular campground, so you can disable these or rename them to something more useful. For instance, if none of your sites are waterfront but you have some desirable cabins that are cliff-side, just change the text from "waterfront" to "cliff-side".

Many of the customer and reservation data fields can be renamed and used for different purposes.  For instance, you can change "# Pets" to "# Meals", or "Phone 2" to "Cell Phone".  The labels on dialogs will usually be the "Short label" you enter, and column headings will be the "Report heading" you enter.

Some of the fields enable or disable not only the data entry but a lot of associated functionality as well.  For instance, if you enable the Site "Dirty" field, then you also enable the associated functions and display options that go with it -- menu functions to mark it dirty or clean, columns to show it on the Rack and other reports, options to automatically set the flag and warn if it's dirty on check-in, etc.  Enabling the Shift fields adds functionality for shift changing and reporting (more on that later).  Enabling the Reservation "Label" field allows you to change what shows on the Rack for a reservation, and gives you another way to search for reservations.  

Note that once the database is in use, you can still enable and disable fields or change their text.  However, be aware that any data in newly-disabled fields will be lost even if you re-enable the field later (assuming the database is saved to disk and reloaded before re-enabling it).

See Data Field Definitions in the Maintenance section for more information.