Summary Fields and Record Detail

Overview

Every record in a portal has two surfaces:

1. A summary that shows in the table row, gallery card, kanban card, or calendar entry.
2. A detail page that opens when the end user clicks the record.

You decide which viewable fields appear on the summary and which only appear on the detail page. The rest of the configuration, field permissions and required fields, still applies as normal.

This is the single most useful setting on wide tables. A table with 100 fields is unreadable as a row, but five well-chosen summary fields make it scannable, and the detail page handles the rest.

Configuring Summary Fields

1. 1

   Open the Display tab

   In the portal admin, open the role, expand the table, and switch to the Display tab.

2. 2

   Pick the summary fields

   The control underneath the view type dropdown changes name depending on the view:

   • Table: "Columns shown in the table"
   • Gallery / Kanban / Calendar: "Fields shown on the card"

   Check the fields you want on the summary. Uncheck the rest. Unchecked fields still appear on the detail page when a user clicks the record. Changes save with the rest of the portal configuration.

Defaults

When you first switch a table to a non-table view, CollabPortals picks up to three fields automatically as the card body, skipping the primary field, the cover field (gallery), the group field (kanban), and the date field (calendar). For the table view, every viewable field is shown until you customise the list.

You can always change the selection later.

Reserved Fields

A few fields are reserved by the view itself, so you can't add them to the card body. The view already uses them structurally:

• The primary field is always shown as the card title.
• The cover field (gallery) shows as the card image.
• The group field (kanban) determines which column the card sits in. It is not duplicated on the card.
• The date field (calendar) determines where the record is placed on the calendar. It is not duplicated on the card.

These fields appear in the picker with a small note explaining what they're being used for. You don't need to add them to the summary fields list, and you can't deselect them either.

Interaction with Field Permissions

Summary fields are a strict subset of viewable fields. A field set to Hidden in field permissions never appears, not on the summary, not on the detail page. Hiding a field is the way to remove it entirely; unchecking it on the summary keeps it available on the detail page.

Tips

• Start with five or six summary fields. End users can scan a list with five columns. A list with thirty is overwhelming.
• Pick fields that disambiguate records. Status, owner, date, location. Anything that helps a user pick the right record to click into.
• Push long text and rarely-read fields to the detail page. Description, notes, attachments, multi-line content.
• Per role. Each role has its own summary field selection. A staff view and a client view can summarise the same table differently.

Next Steps

• View Types - Pick the layout for a table
• Gallery View - Cover image and card fields
• Kanban View - Group field and drag-to-edit
• Calendar View - Date field and calendar behaviour
• Field Permissions - Hide a field entirely