Custom Fields

Custom fields let you track things Cattle360 doesn’t already have a field for — a lease block, a buyer reference, a DNA test result, a pen number. Once you add one, it appears on every animal record, becomes a column and a filter you can use in reports, groups and fieldsheets, and is included in your data export.

How to Get There

1. Click Settings in the navigation menu.
2. Select Default Settings.
3. Scroll to the Custom Fields section.

You need the Edit Default Settings permission to add or change custom fields. Without it the list is visible but read-only — ask your account owner to make the change.

Adding a Custom Field

1. Click Add Custom Field.
2. Enter a Field name. This is the label shown on the animal record and the heading used for the column.
3. Choose a Field type (see below).
4. Optionally add a Description, which appears as a hint under the field on the animal form.
5. Set the Display order to control where it sits relative to your other custom fields.
6. Click Save.

Field Types

For a Dropdown field, add each choice in the Add a choice box and press Add. You need at least one choice before the field can be saved.

Recording Values on an Animal

1. Open an animal and click Edit.
2. Expand the Custom Fields panel.
3. Fill in the values and save.

To see the values without editing, open the animal and click Full animal record; the Custom Fields panel shows there read-only. If your account has no custom fields, the panel doesn’t appear at all.

Changes Are Tracked

Every change to a custom field value is written to that animal’s Activity history, the same as a change to a built-in field — for example, “Changed Pasture Lease from Empty to North 40”. You can see who changed what and when.

Using Custom Fields in Reports, Groups and Fieldsheets

As Columns

Each custom field automatically becomes a selectable column. Open a report, group or fieldsheet’s settings and pick it from the column list exactly as you would Ear Tag or Breed. Columns are formatted to match their type, so dates print as dates and Yes/No fields print as Yes or No — in the grid, the CSV export and the printed fieldsheet alike.

As Filter Criteria

A Custom Fields section appears in the criteria panel of reports, smart groups and fieldsheets. Click Add Custom Field Condition, pick the field, then pick a condition. The conditions offered depend on the field type:

• Text — is, is not, contains, has any value, is blank.
• Dropdown — is any of, is, is not, has any value, is blank.
• Number — =, ≠, >, ≥, <, ≤, between, has any value, is blank.
• Date — on, on or after, on or before, between, has any value, is blank.
• Yes / No — is, has any value, is blank.

Add as many conditions as you need; an animal must satisfy all of them to appear in the result. Because smart groups re-evaluate their criteria every time you open them, a smart group built on a custom field stays current on its own — fill in the value on a new animal and it joins the group.

Using a Custom Field as Your Animal Identifier

If your operation identifies cattle by something Cattle360 doesn’t have a built-in tag for — a herd number, a registry ID, a pen code — you can tell Cattle360 to label animals by one of your own fields instead of the ear tag.

1. Go to Settings → Default Settings.
2. In Identification & Weight Units, choose Custom field for the livestock type.
3. Pick the field from Field to identify animals by.

From then on, the identifier column across animal lists, groups, reports, pickers and pedigree screens is headed with your field’s name and shows its value, and sorting and filtering that column works on that value.

What Can Be Nominated

• Only Text and Number fields. Date, Yes/No and Dropdown fields cannot identify an animal, so they are not offered. If you have no text or number custom fields yet, the Custom field option stays disabled and the page tells you to add one first.
• The field only needs to be unique among your animals — it is not checked against anything else.

When an Animal Has No Value

A blank is never shown as an empty row. If an animal has nothing in the nominated field, Cattle360 falls back to the first identifier it does have — ear tag, then EID, freeze brand, other tag, and finally name.

What Happens If the Field Is Changed

• Hiding the field (clearing Show this field on the animal record) drops the setting back to Ear Tag, because an identifier nobody can fill in is worse than no setting at all.
• Changing its type to Date, Yes/No or Dropdown does the same.
• Deleting the field also reverts identification to Ear Tag.

In every case the setting reverts silently — re-nominate the field (or a different one) afterwards if you still want a custom identifier.

Matching on a Custom Field When Importing

The Import Animals screen lets you choose a custom field as the Default Identifier — the column your CSV is matched on, including for SireIdentifier and DamIdentifier. Your text and number fields appear under Your custom fields in that dropdown. This is the option to reach for when your ear tags repeat between herds or years. If a value used as a sire or dam matches more than one animal — in the file or already in your herd — validation fails and names the value rather than guessing which animal was meant. See Importing Animals from CSV.

Hiding a Field Without Deleting It

Clear Show this field on the animal record when you edit a field. The field and its column disappear from the animal record and from the column and criteria pickers, but nothing you have already recorded is deleted. Turn it back on and the values are all still there. Hidden fields show a Hidden badge in the settings list.

This is the safe option when a field has served its purpose but you want to keep the history.

Renaming and Changing a Field

• Renaming is safe. Existing reports, groups and fieldsheets keep working and simply show the new heading.
• Changing the type re-reads every stored value. If a saved value doesn’t fit the new type — text in a field switched to Number, say — it shows as blank. The dialog warns you and tells you how many values are affected before you save.

Deleting a Field

Deleting is permanent. It removes the field, every value recorded against it on every animal, and the column and any filter condition using it from your reports, groups and fieldsheets. The confirmation tells you how many animals have a value before you commit.

If you are not certain, hide the field instead.

Custom Fields in Your Data Export

Account data exports include two extra files:

• custom-fields — your field definitions: name, type, choices and display order.
• animal-custom-field-values — every recorded value, with the animal id and the field name alongside it so a CSV reads on its own.

See Exporting Your Data for how to run an export.

Tips

• Prefer a dropdown over free text when the answer comes from a fixed list. Consistent values make filters and reports far more useful.
• Pick the type carefully up front. Number and Date fields sort and filter properly; the same values stored as Text sort alphabetically, so 10 lands between 1 and 2.
• Hide, don’t delete, when a field is no longer in use — you keep the history and can always bring it back.
• Rename freely. The link between a field and the reports using it does not depend on its name.