This article discusses functionality that is included in the Enterprise+ plan. Please contact us if you would like a live demo or would like to try using it in your account.
Aha! Roadmaps | Custom tables (Enterprise+)
There are hundreds of ways you can customize Aha! Roadmaps to match how your team works. Some teams may wish to go beyond custom statuses, fields or terminology and add their own custom extension to the Aha! Roadmaps data model. Custom tables enable exactly this.
By managing this information directly in Aha! Roadmaps, you can make better prioritization decisions and share the most important information related to your plans and roadmaps. For example, you could make a custom table to manage a central list of key strategic customers. In addition, markets or opportunities can be centrally located and visible across your organization.
What you track with custom tables is completely flexible and up to you — in all cases, you can then easily link what is being tracked to your initiatives, features, and ideas for a single view into roadmap impact.
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How it works
A custom table is a collection of records organized in a table with data defined by custom fields. The information can be managed within Aha! Roadmaps and can also be programmatically imported and kept up-to-date through our API.
Administrators with customization permissions on the Enterprise+ plan can create and configure custom tables by following these steps:
Navigate to Settings ⚙️ Account Custom tables and click Create custom table.
You can create your custom table from scratch or begin with an example table and modify it as necessary. The examples you will see are for common use cases, including datasets related to customers, markets, opportunities, partners, or release history. The example tables create a set of relevant custom fields. If you use an example table and you'd like to link the custom table to your existing Aha! Roadmaps records, you will still need to set up a relationship custom field. See step 4.
Add and modify custom fields by clicking the Add custom field option or click on the custom field name to modify the field. Note: The value in the first field will be used as the identifying name for the row's record when it appears in Aha! Roadmaps.
Link your custom table to existing data via three custom field types: one-to-many relationships, many-to-one relationships, and many-to-many relationship. One-to-many relationship fields display the whole custom table on a record, and allow you to edit the custom table from that record. Many-to-many and many-to-one relationship fields let you link records to custom table records.
Don't forget to add your one-to-many or many-to-many custom fields to a record layout!
Notes:
If you add a one-to-many relationship to a custom layout, it will appear in the record layout as its own tab, rather than a field within a tab.
After you have created a custom table, a new Custom tables option will appear in your workspace settings.
![Custom table account-level settings](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/3TtWgK7AS8TI8BLErmCiPR/e30476297276b880a66c1518a24926b1/Screen_Shot_2020-12-18_at_9.43.40_PM.png?w=750&h=323&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
Owners and contributors on the Enterprise+ plan can add records to any custom table in the account. Custom table records are associated with a workspace or workspace line. They can be viewed and edited from a given workspace or workspace line in your workspace settings. Each tab represents a table with data in the selected workspace.
You can edit many custom table records at the same time using bulk edit.
Custom tables need at least one record before they will appear in your workspace settings. To add the first record to a custom table within a workspace, click the + icon and select the custom table from the Add custom table dropdown. Once the first record has been added, the records can be accessed and edited through the new corresponding tab.
One-to-many relationship
The one-to-many relationship embeds a custom table on another record as a tab in its detail and drawer views. You can add, edit or delete information on the custom table from the record (or from the custom table, of course). The benefit of the one-to-many relationship field is that you can see the whole custom table at once — and have full context when you update information on it.
Note: If you want to use a spreadsheet-like table in your records, you may need a custom table, or you might benefit from a custom worksheet. You can use custom worksheets to perform calculations on data using custom equations and a variety of field identifiers.
For example, say that your team has trouble shipping releases on time. You could use a custom table to track releases in your account that have shipped past their expected release date. Add fields to track the expected release date, actual release date, and any comments on the slip.
If you add this table as a one-to-many field for releases, then the details and drawer views for all releases will contain the custom table which can be easily updated as needed to reflect changes to the release schedule.
If you add a one-to-many relationship to a custom layout or an advanced custom layout, it will appear in the record layout as its own tab, rather than a field within a tab.
![Release linking to a custom table with a one-to-many relationship field](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/1h14E4p3zIeXDza63XmE8t/aabf442af19b57f11d2ab9717b7bde5a/Screen_Shot_2020-09-25_at_3.37.44_PM.png?w=750&h=354&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
Many-to-many relationships
The many-to-many relationship custom field functions similar to a predefined-tag field. It allows you to associate multiple records from a custom table to your Aha! Roadmaps records. For example, associating customers with a feature.
![Feature linked to a custom table with a many-to-many relationship](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/5atkH3GHOycOdLwtMOswzj/637e4ccd1f4643d5d80d0cf2edcd663d/Screen_Shot_2020-09-25_at_3.png?w=750&h=422&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
What makes the custom table especially powerful is that by clicking on the tag, you can open up the drawer view for that specific custom table record, allowing you to view key information for the underlying record.
![Custom table record drawer view in front of a feature](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/6WqVF86UcM6WbTCdGHUqZg/61c004767104cc2ccc5d73fe56e17162/Screen_Shot_2020-09-25_at_3.23.51_PM__2_.png?w=750&h=422&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
When adding a many-to-many field, you can specify which custom table records are available for selection from the Record visibility setting on the custom field.
Entire account: Displays all records in the account. While all records are available for selection, the user will only see those available for their user permissions.
Workspace and workspace lines only: Displays only records that are in the current workspace and those inherited by its workspace line(s).
![Create many-to-many custom table relationship field for features](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/1gWQIpi8beIDUAamvAE8C3/7f9ee9af796a6209fde4020c687664eb/_support_roadmaps_strategic-roadmaps_customizations_custom-tables.png?w=750&h=586&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
Many-to-one-relationships
Like many-to-many relationships, many-to-one relationship custom fields function similar to a predefined-tag field. However, they allow you to associate only one record from a custom table to your Aha! Roadmaps records.
![Feature linked to custom table with a many-to-one field](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/7yPwZo91ddhNmhtba20NUM/72cf169871dd6cd2aa725f0489edbf9f/Screen_Shot_2020-09-25_at_3__1_.png?w=750&h=422&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
This is a useful constraint if you want to be sure that each record associated with your custom table is associated with only one custom table record. Just like in many-to-many relationship fields, you can click the one custom table record to open up its drawer view, and you can adjust a custom table's Record visibility setting on the custom field.
Entire account: Displays all records in the account. While all records are available for selection, the user will only see those available for their user permissions.
Workspace and workspace lines only: Displays only records that are in the current workspace and those inherited by its workspace line(s).
Report on and search for custom tables
Custom tables allow you to visually bring data together. As with all Aha! Roadmaps data, the data in a custom table is reportable. To view your custom table as a list report, which opens it up to the ability to add filters, sorting, and other data, click the More options menu on the righthand side of your custom table, then click View as list report.
Beyond that option, you can generate lists, pivot tables, charts, and timelines from your new custom table, and reference custom table records in custom worksheets. You can also search for custom table records using Aha! Roadmaps search.
Note: Custom table relationship fields are not sortable fields.
![Column chart showing feature count by customer based on custom table](https://images.ctfassets.net/4zfc07om50my/1lTWVrfFS1Bw19pwbVfXOF/cb405d272c06e1952f9ee7290418247c/_support_roadmaps_strategic-roadmaps_customizations_custom-tables.png?w=750&h=474&q=90&fm=png&bg=transparent)
If you get stuck, please reach out to our Customer Success team. Our team is made up entirely of product experts and responds fast.