Getting Started with Custom Objects in Kizen

Purpose: Learn how to use Custom Objects for your data, add a new Custom Object, and edit your existing Custom Objects.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Overview
How to Add a New Custom Object
How to Edit a Custom Object
How to Delete a Custom Object
Other Custom Object Articles

Overview

Custom Objects are fully customizable data structures that can be configured as static data (ex: inventory, accounts) or Workflows/Pipelines, data that moves through defined stages (ex: sales pipelines, support tickets). Custom Objects can be paired with Custom Fields to track all the most important pieces of data.

Kizen's standard, out-of-the-box Objects include Contacts, Companies, and Products, which is a great place to start for your business’s data tracking needs. However, if your business has unique operational models, you can create your own Custom Objects to track specialized data such as sales opportunities, projects, or assets.

How to Add a New Custom Object

Step 1: Create the Object

Note: All Objects must have a unique name. Objects cannot have the same name as an existing Custom Object.

Navigate to “Data” > “Custom Objects” in your Toolbar at the top of your screen. This is where you’ll find all of your Custom Objects in one place.
Click on the “New Object” button in the upper right.
Enter the Object Name (for example, "Support Pipeline").
Enter the Entity Name (for example, "Ticket"). Entities are the individual records within the Object.
Next, you can enable or disable the following optional features for your new Object: to choose if you want your new Object to contain a Workflow, if you want to track Entity $ Value, if you want to enable Quick Filters, and if you want to add Activities for this Object.
1. Contains Workflow: Toggle this setting on if your entities/records are going to be moving through a workflow with open and closed stages (for example, sales pipelines, support ticketing, and project management) that you would like to track. If you toggle this on, the “Stage Settings” section will appear, and you can add those stages.
2. Enable Quick Filters: Toggle this setting on to enable an additional layer of pre-defined filters on records, chart groups, and board views. This is useful if you and your team often use the same filters in an Object and don't want to have to recreate the same filters every single time.
3. Enable Activities: Toggle this setting on to allow the ability to associate logged or scheduled activities with this Object. This is useful for keeping track of tasks and notifications related to the Object.
4. Track Entity $ Value: Toggle this setting on if you want to track the monetary value of your Object's entities/records.
Click the “Save & Continue” button in the upper right.

The next section allows you to associate your new Object with your Contacts or other Custom Objects. For example, if you're tracking Support Tickets, you can associate each Ticket record to a Contact record and choose to display this association in both records.

7. First, determine if you want to set Related Objects or not. By default, all Custom Objects will be associated with Contacts, but if you don't require this for your Object, you can click on the trash bin icon to the left of "Contacts."

8. Set the Team Associations for your Object and its Related Objects: This is important when considering what access your team members should be granted. All users with "My Records" permission on an associated related record, as chosen in the Objects/fields selector, will immediately gain access to those records. Additionally, all Direct associations (including Owner) to this Object will be used for providing access.

9. When adding a Related Object, pick the Relationship Type to determine if multiple Object records can be associated with one Contact ("Many-to-One") or if only one Object record should be associated with one Contact ("One-to-One"). In our example Support Pipeline use case, we would want to choose "Many-to-One" because we assume it's highly likely that the same Contact will submit multiple Support tickets!

10. Next, determine the Relationship Name and Reverse Relationship Name, which will be the names of the Relationship fields that are automatically created in the Object and the Related Object. For example, "Primary Contact Record" will display the name of the Contact associated with the Support ticket, and "Related Ticket Records" will display all of the Support tickets associated with that Contact.

11. Customize additional Related Object settings:

a. Toggle Share Timeline To Related? and Share Timeline From Related? on if you would like to display the Timeline section of your new Object to the Related Objects and vice versa.

b. Toggle Share Lead Sources To Related? and Share Lead Sources From Related? to share Lead Sources of your new Object record with the associated Related Object record.

c. Toggle Suppress Related Field? to hide the Relationship field on the Related Object and prevent updates to the Related Objects from appearing in the Timeline. It's important to note that once you toggle this on, this is not reversible.

12. Click the “Save & Continue” button in the upper right.

Step 3: Customize Fields (Optional)

13. Customize your fields by adding new Custom Fields to track the data you need for your new Custom Object.

14. You can also create new categories to organize your fields for your specific needs.

15. Click on the "Next Step" button in the upper right.

Step 4: Customize Layout (Optional)

16. Next, customize how you want to view your new Custom Object data by editing the layout components. Drag and drop existing or add new layout components to display your data for your team's specific needs and preferences.

17. Click on the "Save" button in the upper right corner.

18. Then, choose the default columns that you want to display on the main Table View. Here's more information on How to Edit Default Columns in the Table View.

19. Click on the "Save" button in the upper right corner.

Step 5: Set Permissions (Optional)

20. Finally, you can add permissions to control who can see and edit your new Custom Object and the data associated with it. Use the slider to select your team members' access to None (most restrictive), View, Create/Edit, or Delete/All (least restrictive). For example, you may not want to give your Support team full access to all Support tickets and restrict your Sales team to only be able to access tickets that are associated with their specific clients.

To learn more about permissions, check out our guide on Team, Roles & Permissions.

Note: By default, a new Object will not be accessible by any permission group except the administrator. You must explicitly apply the permission set you create to specific permission groups of your choosing

21. Click on "Close." You can now Add Entity Records to your Custom Object!

How to Edit a Custom Object

To edit a Custom Object after you’ve created it, you can access Object Settings from either of the following interfaces:

If you're already in the Custom Object you want to edit (ex: “Companies”), click on the gear icon in the upper right > “Object Settings.” These settings can be accessed by anyone on your team.
Click on "Data" in the top menu bar > "Custom Objects" > 3-dot menu ("...") next to the Object name > "Edit Object Settings."

How to Delete a Custom Object

To delete a Custom Object:

Navigate to the same Custom Objects menu and click on the 3-dot menu ("...") next to the Object name > "Delete."
Confirm the deletion by clicking into the box and typing "CONFIRM [number of records]."
Click on the "Confirm Delete" button.

Note: Deleting the Custom Object will permanently delete ALL of the records within that Custom Object.