Lines are a super-sized enhancement to your Apps that will allow you to give them a boost of capabilities. With them, you can create invoices or quotes with ease right inside of FreeAgent without using any other system.
Edition Qualifier: This feature is available in all FreeAgent Editions.
User Permissions: Only the Administrator can customize Lines.
In this tutorial, we will cover the following topics:
Navigate to Lines
Navigate to Admin Settings > App Setup. Select your desired App then select 'Lines' from the menu options. You can also use the search function to get there faster, just start typing 'Lines'.
Create Lines for your App
To create a Line, simply click the 'Add New Line' button. Here you will need to add the name of your Line. You also have the option to select a unique icon for your Line. There are a few options for you to choose from. Quick Tip: think of the Lines as a "child-app" of your main app.
As soon as you click the 'Save' button the Line will be created and it will be available right next to Lines in the top menu. Click the name of your New Line to start adding fields to your Line and view the additional components to your line configuration - Form Fields, Form Sections, Card Configuration and Form Rules.
Inline Edit
Lines can now be edited directly wherever they appear in an App. When creating or editing a Line you will now see a field named 'Form Mode.' Click into this field, select 'Inline' and Save.
Inline mode is best used to quickly add and edit data such as SKUs and other information that can be grouped together, thus showing similar information in the line columns. Remain in default mode if the line-type structures are too different and necessitate the adding of lines via form fields.
Note: When in Inline mode, any fields added to the Line will not show their Field Hint.
Create Fields for your Line
Configuring your Lines is very similar to how you add Fields to your Apps. Click the 'Add Field' button to get started. To learn how to create fields and what type of fields you have available, we recommend the following tutorial:
Form Fields
Form Scripts for Lines
Individual Lines can now support custom Form Scripts. Form scripts within lines will work with the Form Script of the parent App to utilize the Rules dictated in the custom code.
When creating or editing a Line you will now see a Form Script section, click into the 'Form Script' field and select 'Yes.' The Script window will then become editable. Add or edit code lines and then click Save.
Note: For best results, use Line Form Scripts in conjunction with the parent App Form Script. For more information on setting up Form Scripts click here.
Pro-Tips
Grid View
Lines are now displayed in a list view, making it easier to create and manage your line records. This feature, paired with Inline Edit Mode and Form Script features can yield amazing results in Apps that are heavily Line dependent such as Quotes.
From a fully customized list you can add Lines with a single click, configure them to your Form Rules and edit them in real time without leaving the Lines.
Note: FreeAgent recommends less than 50 Lines per Parent Record to optimize performance within a given App.
Use Reference Join Fields Where Possible
Lines are mostly used to create a dependency relationship between your apps, as a parent-child relationship. Because of this, it is a good idea to identify those elements that you already have within your Apps and create Reference and Reference Join Fields to get that existing data instead of having to input it manually.
For example, if you are looking to create an Invoice App, and you need to have the Account Name and Address, instead of creating Text fields to manually input them, you can get this information from the Account App. Just create a Reference field to select the Account and then a Reference Join to auto populate the address.
Create Field Sections to Keep your Forms Nice and Clean
If you are planning on adding multiple fields to your Line, we recommend that you create Form Sections to organize your fields and data. To learn more about them, we recommend the following tutorial:
Form Sections
Configure your Card
You can change the configuration of the cards for your Lines as well. To learn more about Card Configuration, please visit the following tutorial:
Card Configuration
Identify which Elements Should be Part of the App, and Those that Should be Added to the Line
To explain this, let's use an Invoice as an example. There are elements in the invoice that are part of the high-level information (1), meaning the App, while there are others that belong to the table (2) inside the invoice, those correspond to the Line.
