Rename Default Custom Fields
Hello!
The custom fields have been a great help in gathering useful project information all in one place. However, every project, no matter how the custom fields are edited in Table view, seem to always display the custom fields Owners, Start Date, Finish Date, and Status. The information entered into these fields is vital to almost all of our project but the naming is confusing for our company's workflow. For example, every project has multiple people that contribute, there is no owner per se, so we use multiple custom fields to show the names of contributors. Similarly, in product design the term "Finish Date" isn't very helpful, but if it was called "In-Hands Date" to help differentiate it from the other ends dates of other processes that would very helpful.
Essentially, I would like to be able to rename the default fields as an administrator to fit our team's commonly used terminology and needs.
Thanks!
Hi Ben, welcome to the Community! That's a great example, and I'd love to hear about other fields where you feel it would be useful to be able to tweak the terminology. Wrike is used by different types of teams, and while the product aims to include general terminology which would work for most teams, I can definitely see how changing some areas could be useful
I support this change. @Anastasia, We use wrike to help us manage our Recruitment Process. For us a Project is a 'Role', and a Task is an 'Applicant'. It would be great to have the ability to rename project and task to be relevant for what our workspace is. From a users point of view, it would be so much better to see "New Applicant" rather than "New Task".
Hi Christian! That's an interesting way of looking at it.Thanks for sharing, I really appreciate the example! I'd actually love to learn more about your processes, if you're willing to share :) How many roles and applicants do you usually have in the system?
We would have about 20 Roles and 300 applicant's 'active' in the system.
Christian, thanks for getting back to me! That's helpful, and great to hear about how you're using Wrike.
In our industry, the project owner is the entity that is paying for the project. So in a project were we were a subcontractor to an engineering firm who was working for a state agency, the state agency would be the owner our internal project "owner" is the project manager (PM). It would be much more intuitive for us if we could change "owner" in Wrike to "PM". We also have a lot of different kinds of start and end dates but we've been able to capture those so far using milestones.
We would also like to be able to rename the system group "My Team" to "Everyone". For us, "team" means a specific thing that is very different from "Every person in my company who uses Wrike." I suspect that this is true of most companies larger than 10 or 15 people.
Thank you for your input, Randy Wilson. It's been passed on to our Product managers. When I have an update for you I'll let you know 😊
So, I never saw a conclusion to this question/subject.
Can System Field names be changed?
... and when a rename takes place (whether custom or system), do all references to that field get updated automatically, even formulas?
My previous comment referenced system fields. I meant to ask the question with respect to custom fields, which is the subject of the discussion.
However, I may as well ask. Can system fields be renamed?
And I do support this renaming of fields.
Hi William Weinberger, thank you for reaching out!
It's not possible to change system fields' names. This suggestion has been long passed on to the Product team but it seems it's not supported by a lot of Community members currently. It would be great if you could upvote it if you haven't yet 👍
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
The reason I asked about the renaming of system fields is because of the following set of dates - Start Date, Due Date, and Duration. I have asked the following question to a few of you support team as to whether these are actual or planned dates. No one seems to have a definitive answer as to what they are intended to represent.
By the use of the term "Due Date", I interpret them as planned dates. But others seem to interpret them a actual dates. If I am correct in my interpretation that they are to be regarded as planned dates, then I would suggest an additional set of system dates be introduced - Actual Start Date, Actual Finish (or End) Date, and Actual Duration.
Why is this information needed? It is important to calculate variances on projects between actual and planned dates and durations. This is information that organizations can use to more accurately estimate work.
Thank you for getting back to me William Weinberger! Although those system fields that you've mentioned (Actual Start Date etc) aren't available in Wrike currently, it's possible to create such custom fields and then make the necessary calculations. Could you tell me if you've considered those options?
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
I already created the "Actual" fields. The issue is that the Start Date, Due Date, and Duration are used in the Gantt Chart and I would like to name them to reflect my understanding if what they represent,
An additional comment. The duration formula needs to have a value of 8 (representing hours in a work day) added to correctly calculate the duration
William Weinberger Thank you for clarifying and for your continued feedback here!
We'll let you know if there are any updates here.
Lisa Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover
Lisa Wrike Team member Become a Wrike expert with Wrike Discover