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→Let's learn about the importance of correct data formats!
When storing any information into any system, it's important to understand what type of information you're dealing with and to format it accordingly. The purpose of this is to store information in a meaningful way so that you can perform calculations or analysis on it. Take the example of someone's name; the easiest way to store this would be in a single field called 'name'.
However, problems occur later on if any manipulation or analysis of this name field is done. It cannot be separated into first/last name, meaning [[Adding Custom Fields to Company and Contact Information|contacts]] cannot be sorted by last name if one so chooses. Can the The name field cannot simply be parsed and separated based on by looking for an empty space between the names? This either because we cannot be achieved until we know what sure of the format of the data in contained within the field . Users may have entered their middle name as well, or perhaps their first name iscomposed of two separate words...etc. resulting in multiple space breaks in our name field. To correct this problem, multiple input fields would need to be usedfor a name. These fields force the user to be specific and enter the data as such. This can be done by using separate fields for first name, middle name, last name, and even a title field for Jrs/Srs.
In order for information to be meaningful and useful, it must be formatted and stored correctly. It is unsafe to try to manipulate unstructured and unformatted data into another format.
== WHERE? AND HOW? ==
The main area to consider is the [[Custom Field|custom fields]] that you create and how you design them. Some Below are some specific examples includeusing the validation and formatting option of a [[Custom_Field_Type:_Text_–_Single_Line|Single Line Text field]]:
1) '''Date/time''': Date/time values should always be stored as a single Date/time value. The year, month, date, day as numbers or words, as well as the time, etc. can all be extracted from this.
Consider how the standard date field is input fields are broken up into a date, hour, and minute input but the system actually stores all this data as a single field. MySQL (and most other areas for easy sorting) uses the format "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS". By using the Date validation on a custom field, uniform date formatting is stored in the system regardless of how each individual user specifies the way they wish to view dates.
2) '''Numbers''': Numbers always need to be entered accurately. Consider how you would store currency data. When you use the Numeric validation and Currency formatting on a custom field, the system actually stores the number value to the full number of decimals and without a currency symbol (i.e. "12.948576"). However, when the system displays this field, it is rounded to two decimals and with a currency symbol (i.e. "$12.95").
