Creating Field Names

20/20 DataShed is designed to give priority to certain fields in the database. For example, certain fields are configured by default to be displayed in the search form and item templates. (Most of these options can be altered, but it's a good idea to follow the design when possible.) To understand these prioritized fields, a brief discussion of biology!? is in order.

Taxonomy

"Taxonomy" refers to the division of items or things into ordered groups and categories. It is a term normally used by biologists to describe the classification of plants or animals. However, 20/20 DataShed uses this type of terminology to describe the classification of any item.

Your own inventory can be organized into ordered categories -- like a hierarchy of groups or terms used to describe each item. Any "thing" can be identified by its characteristics, some of which may be shared by other things and some which may be unique.

In this manner, 20/20 DataShed's database fields can be renamed according to your own business model. If you're operating a biology web site, then perhaps your field names will in fact represent traditional terminology:

• Kingdom (Main Category)
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species
• -- and the other available fields may be used for subclass, infraclass, and superfamily!

Or perhaps you operate a real estate firm and your field names reflect that marketplace:

• Market (Main Category)
• Country
• County
• Province/State
• City
• Postal Code
• Street Address
• -- and the other available fields may be used to describe the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and additional features.

Similarly, your field names may reflect automobiles:

• Market (Main Category)
• Year
• Engine Type
• Transmission Type
• Manufacturer
• Model
• Body Style
• -- and the other available fields may be used to describe the number of doors, interior and exterior colours, and additional features.

Other Fields

When the prioritized fields are combined with others 20/20 DataShed provides the ability to organize a wide variety of information. Note that the table below does not include all available fields but this example clearly demonstrates how the variety of available fields can be used to store the necessary information about your inventory.

Our Advice

We recommend that you spend time in the 20/20 DataShed Options » "Item Field Names and Options Groups" panel to carefully create appopriate field names for your business model.

Note the following:

• You can create unique field names for each main category if you wish.
• Each set of field names (we call it a "Field Names and Options Group") can also have a different set of required fields, HTML templates (for unique layouts per category if you wish), and different default options.
• We strongly recommend that you read the Tip... associated with each field so that you understand the field more completely. It is important that you choose appropriate field names for each "type" of information: numeric fields for numbers, text fields for text, and so on.

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