About the Value Display Format

The value display format setting controls many features:

Guidelines for the value display format follow:

The default value display format is <Title>.
The value display format you specify is limited to 255 characters.
HTML tags can be used to format item headers, but tags are not always rendered. For example, HTML tags will appear in the selection lists presented to users and in Manage Data sort columns.
Privileges control the data returned by the value display format. If users do not have privileges to view a field that is included, asterisks are returned.
File and URL field types are not supported in the value display format.

Item Appearance

Use the value display format to control:

How items appear in lists in the SBM User Workspace. This includes search results and default columns for reports that return lists of items.
The format of item headers on forms.

You can set the order in which the fields appear, add text to the format, and use HTML tags to format the content. For example, specify this value display format:

 <Title> - <b><Owner></b>

Items from the table will appear in search results as follows:

ITEM10098 This is the title of the item - Item's owner

Note: For primary items, the Item ID is always included.

Relational Field Value Display and Sorting

The value display format determines how values appear in Single Relational and Multi-Relational selection lists on forms. For example, the value display format for a Versions table might be <Product Name> <Version Name>.

Relational field values based on auxiliary tables are sorted by the table's value display format. To change the order in which values sort for the Relational field, modify the value display format for the auxiliary table.

Relational Field Value Searches

The value display format determines the fields that are searched and the order in which values are searched for:

Relational fields for the Value Find feature on item forms
Relational Field Value Lookup form
Lookup form in the SBM User Workspace

For example, if you add the Item ID and Description fields as the value display format for a primary table, users can search for values by item ID or keyword for relational fields that reference the table.

The display order of the fields affects how the Value Find feature operates. Value Find separates the entered values based on spaces, and then searches for the first value in the first column, the second value in the second column, and so on.

For example, if users search for manager doe and the value display format is <FullName> - <Position>, the Value Find results will be None.

In addition, if users search for john doe with the value display format of <FullName> - <Position>, the Value Find results will be None. This is because Value Find looks for a <FullName> containing john and a <Position> containing doe.

Users must use quotation marks to treat the value as single entity when searching each column. For example, entering "john doe" in Value Find will yield the results John Doe - Manager.

Auxiliary Data Sorting

If you specify multiple fields for the value display format for auxiliary tables, the fields are automatically shown in the first column of search results for the Manage Auxiliary Data feature.

This enables users to sort results by the value display format. For example, if the column contains a Title and First Name field in that order, results may appear as:

Manager, Adam

Manager, Bruce

Manager, Carol

Default Report Columns

For reports that return lists of items, fields specified in the value display format are displayed if users have not selected fields to display in the report.