User Manual - Special Fields and Interfaces

Special fields and interfaces

Dates

Dates may be entered using the provided date picker or via the text-entry field. Dates may be entered in a variety of formats, including YYYY-MM-DD and MM/DD/YYYY. Leading zeros are not required.

In the default CollectionSpace configuration, dates entered in formats other than YYYY-MM-DD will be returned in that format after pressing enter. Textual date expressions, e.g. tomorrow or next Friday, will also be transformed to YYYY-MM-DD. You may configure an alternative date format for your organization.

Dates may also be selected using a calendar. To open the calendar, select the calendar icon to the right of the date field.

Once the calendar is open, mouse or tab to the desired date. Arrows to the left and right of the month will move forward or back one month. Arrows to the left and right of the year will move forward or back one year. To close the calendar interface, click outside the calendar or press escape.

Structured dates

A structured date is a group of fields represented by a “double calendar” icon. Clicking inside this field will bring up the nine date information fields recommended by the Spectrum documentation standard. 

To close the structured date pop-up, click anywhere outside of the box or hit the Esc key. The data entered into the “Display Date” field will display in the field when the pop-up box is closed.

Core Schema

The table on the following page includes a complete list of the fields available in the core Structured Date schema. For standard field definitions, view the project wiki or Spectrum 3.2 documentation standard.

Structured Date Schema - Core

Dropdowns

Many fields in the system include controlled lists. To select an item from the list, select the down-facing triangle from the right of the field and then mouse or tab to the desired item in the list.

Folding and unfolding sections

In order to decrease screen clutter and facilitate focus, elements of the main edit screen and right sidebar that are not in use may be folded away. To fold or collapse an element, select the downward facing arrow in the gray bar or anywhere else on top of the element. To unfold or expand, select the right facing arrow in the gray bar.

Numeric fields

Certain fields in CollectionSpace can only be assigned numeric values. There are two types of numeric fields: Float fields and Integer fields. Float fields may include digits 0-9 and one decimal point. Integer fields may only include digits 0-9.

Number patterns

Records in CollectionSpace may be assigned an identification number based on a preset pattern (e.g. Year.Number for Acquisitions). To select the next available number in a given pattern, click Select number pattern and mouse or tab to the preferred pattern. 

Once assigned, this number may be edited. In the default CollectionSpace configuration, free text may be entered into identification number fields; use of the number patterns is not required.

Predictive text

Within all types of records, controlled vocabularies are accessed via a predictive text interface. Fields containing links to controlled vocabularies are designated with a downward-facing gray arrow.

To begin searching the vocabulary, type in at least the first three letters of a term. A list of matches will appear below the field. Use the mouse or tab to the term you wish; if the term does not appear, you may add it to a vocabulary by selecting one of the options in green. The predictive text interface will return both preferred and non-preferred terms. Non-preferred terms will be below the preferred term and indented. Depending on your institution, you may or may not be able to select non-preferred terms.

Standard predictive text searches have implicit wildcards at the beginning and end of the entered text; e.g. a search for “Norris” will return “Mark Norris,” “Arnorris Computing,” and “Norrison Museum of Art.” Add anchors or wildcards to your search to limit your results. An anchor ^ before the term will return only results that begin with your term: “^Norris” returns only “Norrison Museum of Art.” An anchor at the end does the opposite, returning only “Mark Norris.” Anchors can be combined with wildcards for more precise searches. Visit the project wiki for more sample autocomplete searches.

Repeatable fields and primary values

Many fields in CollectionSpace may be repeated. These fields have a green + button above them.

Select the + button to add another instance of the field. 

The radio buttons to the left of each field indicate which value should be considered primary. These primary values are used to populate the record header, and in future releases of CollectionSpace will be used in conjunction with search and reporting.

Select the radio button to the left of the field value you wish to designate as primary. After saving the record, the primary value will move to the top of the list.

To delete an instance of a field, select the green X to the right of the field.

Required fields

Each record has fields that must contain values before a new record may be saved. These fields are marked with a red asterisk.

The required fields that are part of the default CollectionSpace implementation are listed below. Your implementation may have different or no required fields.