Custom fields on campaign level

[dspaan]

I've been working with the custom fields for years now with many lists and campaigns. The current setup is build on list level, so you have to define custom fields per list. This has the following disadvantages for day to day operations:

-When adding a new list to a campaign you have to copy the fields from an old list to the new list
-When you want to change or add a field you have to do that for all seperate lists, i've seen campaigns with over 30 lists making it quite a job and unappealing to improve anything about the field layout
-When you make an export of calls via the Reports page the column headers are missing because can be differen per list so the system cannot export them when you export on a campaign level
-Apart from the custom fields you still have the standard vicidial fields from which some of them are mandatory like phone_number and if you want to dial alt_phone you cannot load that number in a custom field. And if you want to see the first and last name in your personal callbacks page you also have to use the standard first_name and last_name fields. The linking of custom fields to standard fields feature doesn't work well because if you want to edit a field like last_name you cannot do this from the FORM tab you have to go to the Vicidial tab otherwise the value is not saved after hanging up the call, same problem with phone_number and alt_phone. This results in an agent still having to use two tabs while all the customer data should just be in one neat tab. What we do now is link the standard fields to custom fields but make them read only and add a Help text telling the agent to go to the Vicidial tab to edit the first_name for instance. But this is so messy...

How to improve all of these issues? Simple, just allow for custom fields to be added on campaign level and not on list level!

This would make adding or updating fields a breeze and exports would have all the proper headers. And linking of custom and standard fields could also maybe be fixed, i'm not sure about that one. Currently you can hide fields with the Labels feature, it would be so good if you can just have all fields (standard and custom) in one tab. Just hide the standard fields you don't need and add fields that you do need. Also it would be really nice to have a drag and drop feature like SugarCRM/SuiteCRM Studio has to position the fields instead of the current horizontal and vertical position fields.

Who uses different custom fields per list within one single campaign anyway? I bet only a very small % of users. The disadvantages of this method cannot compete with the method of custom field per campaign level in my opinion. I know it is hard or maybe even impossible to remove the custom fields per list from SVN Trunk since so many callcenters are already using it so maybe it would have to be an option that you can turn on/off then like so many of the features in vicidial. I'm really eager to hear what others think about this and if they have the same issues or maybe work-arounds?

[mflorell]

We actually have A LOT of clients that use different sets of custom fields lists within a single campaign, one of which years ago is the reason we made the decision to make this a per-list feature. We also have quite a few clients that move leads around from list to list and campaign to campaign, which still makes per-list custom fields the best option. Changing custom fields to be a per-campaign in VICIdial would require some very significant changes to how custom fields works across the whole system, probably 100+ hours of work, although I haven't even gone to all of the work to figure out the actual time needed because it would be such a large project.

As for the "having to use two tabs for standard fields" issue, have you tested that recently? We made some custom fields changes in the last few months that will populate any values placed in a FORM tab standard field into the standard form field as soon as the focus is moved off of the field. This was a specific change we made for a heavy custom field user that only wanted their agents to use the FORM tab, and they have said it has now worked perfectly for months. At the same time we also allowed for the use of duplicate fields within the FORM tab, so you could have fields like the first and last name repeated within the FORM tab throughout it(imagine a 100+ field form tab).

As for the other issues:
- "When adding a new list to a campaign you have to copy the fields from an old list to the new list"
Since this takes maybe 10-20 seconds, not sure we can do much to make this easier

- "When you want to change or add a field you have to do that for all seperate lists..."
It would be possible to create a new "add field to multiple lists" feature, but nobody has ever asked us to quote something like this

- "When you make an export of calls via the Reports page the column headers are missing..."
While it wouldn't be easy or fast, it's certainly a possibility that we could rewrite the Export Calls Report to analyze all custom fields included in an export and put headers to them all, even though it would probably take longer to run, and would result in possibly different header orders depending on the date/parameters you used to pull results.

Another thing to consider is that custom fields works by using the entry_list_id field in the lead to figure out what set of custom fields to use and access. It might be a simpler possible change to just allow something like a "custom list fields override" field on the list modify screen, so that all of the leads that are populated with custom field data would use the custom fields from another list. While this would not be a very simple feature to add, it would certainly be a lot easier than doing something like per-campaign custom list fields.

[dspaan]

We actually have A LOT of clients that use different sets of custom fields lists within a single campaign, one of which years ago is the reason we made the decision to make this a per-list feature. We also have quite a few clients that move leads around from list to list and campaign to campaign, which still makes per-list custom fields the best option.

I didn't think many people would use different fields per list but obviously i was wrong about that. Also i didn't realize the aspect of moving leads around which is actually something that we have done too.

As for the "having to use two tabs for standard fields" issue, have you tested that recently? We made some custom fields changes in the last few months that will populate any values placed in a FORM tab standard field into the standard form field as soon as the focus is moved off of the field. This was a specific change we made for a heavy custom field user that only wanted their agents to use the FORM tab, and they have said it has now worked perfectly for months. At the same time we also allowed for the use of duplicate fields within the FORM tab, so you could have fields like the first and last name repeated within the FORM tab throughout it(imagine a 100+ field form tab).

You are right, i just tested this and it works perfect! I'm so happy
I must have missed this in the SVN release notes.
What i'm thinking about now is to ---HIDE--- all the standard fields and use some of them linked through the FORM tab. Would be great if the Vicidial tab could be hidden entirely because if all the fields are set to ---HIDE--- then this tab is just useless.
By the way there is an issue with usting the ---HIDE--- labels, when you do a lead search from the agent screen it shows the search fields with the "---HIDE---" text in front of them.

As for the other issues:
- "When adding a new list to a campaign you have to copy the fields from an old list to the new list"
Since this takes maybe 10-20 seconds, not sure we can do much to make this easier

Maybe a feature to duplicate a list would be easier, one button that generates a new list based of another list and also generates the list ID. Having to fill out the list ID is a hassle for simple supervisors, especially when you have different usergroups who can't see eachother on one server. Also this way you wouldn't have to first create the list and then copy the fields. Also every time when creating a new list you have to fill out the list reset times and set the audit comments to yes or other things that you prefer like list expire etc. I would think it would be easiest for a supervisor user to add this feature underneath the Modify Campaign menu so that when you duplicate a list you can only choose from the lists that exist within that specific campaign instead of the lists in the entire system making it even simpler for the supervisor to make a choice. How complex would such a list duplication feature be?

- "When you want to change or add a field you have to do that for all seperate lists..."
It would be possible to create a new "add field to multiple lists" feature, but nobody has ever asked us to quote something like this

Or maybe create a parent list with child lists? So you edit something in the parent the children get edited too? Even if it's the field length or adding a value to a drop-down field.

- "When you make an export of calls via the Reports page the column headers are missing..."
While it wouldn't be easy or fast, it's certainly a possibility that we could rewrite the Export Calls Report to analyze all custom fields included in an export and put headers to them all, even though it would probably take longer to run, and would result in possibly different header orders depending on the date/parameters you used to pull results.

I will ask a quote for this through sales.

Another thing to consider is that custom fields works by using the entry_list_id field in the lead to figure out what set of custom fields to use and access. It might be a simpler possible change to just allow something like a "custom list fields override" field on the list modify screen, so that all of the leads that are populated with custom field data would use the custom fields from another list. While this would not be a very simple feature to add, it would certainly be a lot easier than doing something like per-campaign custom list fields.

I think my other suggestion to add a duplication feature for lists including their settings and custom fields would be a good start and together with a the parent-child setup.

[blackbird2306]

This would be a nice feature . Copy list with all settings and checkbox option to include even the custom fields!

[mflorell]

For the "when you do a lead search from the agent screen it shows the search fields with the "---HIDE---" text in front of them." issue, please submit an Issue Tracker ticket with details if you can.

Adding a "Copy List" feature with custom field options would not be that difficult, probably 8 hours of dev time.

Parent/Child list modification as described would be much more complex to set up and would require a new set of admin screens, just a ballpark, probably 30 hours. It would take much less effort to create a "custom fields list ID override" feature.

[dspaan]

I created issue 1079 in the bug tracker regarding the ---HIDE--- labels.

Would the generation of a list ID also be included in those 8 hours? What i'm looking for is a feature that makes it really a matter of one click to add a new list.

If there was 'custom fields list ID override feature' together with the 'generate new list' feature What would be the steps for a new campaign where the 2nd list is added? I imagine something like this:

1.Campaign with script and all settings etc. is created
2.First list is generated, since no other list exists yet this list is just a list without custom fields. the list ID is auto generated.
3.You modify the generated list according to your wishes, custom fields, reset times, etc.
4.In the list modify screen or in the campaign details screen you specify that one list is the source list for all other lists.
5.When you generate a new list it uses the source list to copy everything from, the list ID is auto generated.

Note: when no source list is specified you can still auto generate a list but no other settings are set, only a list ID is generated and the rest is default.

[mflorell]

The ---HIDE--- search form issue should be resolved now in svn/trunk.

Would auto-generating the list ID be something that you would turn on system-wide, or would it have to be something you would enable/disable on a per-user basis, or would it only be used for this new special reduced-options "New Campaign/New List" page?

[dspaan]

Thanks for the fix!

Wouldn't system wide be easiest and prevent conflicts? Maybe in the system settings provide a start range for the numbering. If you would have to do that per campaign it would be extra adminsitrative work and possible conflicts i think. Also i assume system wide is easier to develop.

[mflorell]

We actually already have code to do auto-incremented numeric IDs for several sections within the Administration screens:
vicidial_users
vicidial_campaigns
vicidial_lists
vicidial_drop_lists
vicidial_inbound_groups
vicidial_call_menu
vicidial_user_groups
vicidial_scripts
vicidial_lead_filters
vicidial_shifts
phones


Just look for the table "vicidial_override_ids" in admin.php. We added this years ago for a client that wanted to remove IDs as a variable for his client companies. All you have to do is insert a record for id_table='vicidial_lists' and active='1' and the value is where the IDs will start, and it will go from there in the "Add New..." screens. There is no administration for this other than direct MySQL.