A Record Notes field shows the current record's notes on the form and lets the user add to them. It is the same notes panel that appears in the viewer screen, brought onto a form so that reading and adding notes happens in the same place as everything else.


Two constraints

Internal users only. The field does nothing on a form used by people outside the organization. Notes are internal working commentary, so there is no public equivalent of this field.


It must be used inside a Record. The field shows the notes of the record the form is open in, so it has nothing to show on a form opened outside one - a public form, a blank form started from the toolbar, or a form used to create a new record. On those, leave it off or hide it with a condition until a record exists; the -Record- source described in Field Conditions does exactly that.


Settings

Field Label - The heading shown above the notes.


Allow Edit - Whether the user can add and change notes from this form:

  • Use Record Type Settings - Follows how the record type is configured, so the form behaves the same way the viewer screen does. This is the setting to leave alone unless there is a reason not to, because it keeps one decision in one place.
  • Do Not Allow Edit - Notes are shown but cannot be added or changed, whatever the record type allows. Use it on a form meant for reading - an approval screen, a summary page.
  • Always Allow Edit - Notes can be added and changed even where the record type would not normally allow it.


Whatever this is set to, workflow notes are never editable. Those are the entries the system writes as a record moves through a workflow, and they stay as a record of what happened.


Notes

Because the field follows the record the form is open in, it needs no configuration to point it anywhere - unlike the Document Viewer or Document List, it has no Record ID setting. A form that should show a different record's notes cannot do it with this field.


Sizing the field is worth a moment: notes grow, so give it a height, or put it in a Panel that can be collapsed, rather than letting a long history push the rest of the form down the page.