Adding a Column to a Search Screen

Why might one add a column to a search screen? As an example, the default Clients screen shows type, name/location, e-mail, and phone. Let's say for your business you also would like to show the lead source between the name/location and email columns. Here's how that would be done.

1. Go to the Tools menu and click on Table Definitions.
2. Scroll down and highlight the 'Clients' record under the BMS section and click on the pencil to edit it.
3. You are now editing the Table Definition for 'Clients'. Click on the 'columns' tab and you will see which columns are displayed on the Clients screen whenever any type of search is done.
4. To add a column, go to the bottom where it says Add Column and give this new column the name 'lead source'.
5. In the next field labeled 'field', type in the name of the database field that should be displayed in this column. In this case it should be 'clients.leadsource'.
6. Click the 'add column' button and you will be sent back to the table definition screen.
7. Next you'll need to change the order of the columns. You can do this quickly by clicking the up and down arrows next to your new 'lead source' column on the 'columns' tab. Once 'lead source' is in the right place you are done.

You should now see your new column lead source appearing for each record that shows up in any kind of search.

One question you might have is, where did you get 'clients.leadsource'? From the user interface of phpBMS it might not always be possible to figure out what database 'table.field' correspond to the data you are interested in. In this case, I was able to look through the other tabs on the table definition screen and saw clients.leadsource listed somewhere. The other way to find this sort of information and that should work with each and every field you might like to display is view the phpbms database directly using something like phpMyAdmin or another database client.