Dynamic Fields and Dynamic Field Groups are a common occurrence within Social Network Systems nowadays. The need to evolve and add more data is also increasing. So, the questions is what are Dynamic Fields and Dynamic Field Groups and how will they benefit your community?
Dynamic Fields are a field that allow duplication at a user level. For example, as a community administrator you might have a custom field for the user to select his/her spoken languages. To allow your users the ability to add multiple languages is ideal. A prime example of StackIdeas using this currently is the Multi Dropdown List. If you add one of these you will see an "Add" button which allows the user to add additional options to the field itself. This should be an optional feature across all field types.
Dynamic Field Groups this is essentially a group of fields that are replicate for the user to input additional information across several fields. An example of this would be a users Education or Work Experience. For Education you might want to collect data such as the users School attended, Years Attended, and Degree Program. Likewise with Work Experience. This allows your users to input multiple levels of information and thus your website becomes more robust.
Another key element to this is a search function that allows your users to input data into one field to search vs having to search across multiple fields. For example, I wouldn't want my users to search for several schools or even the same school by having to type Harvard University into an Education 1 field an Education 2 field, etc... They should input Harvard University in a single education search field and it parse all results whether dynamic or not.
Again, this will help build your communities with more information and changing information. Users are constantly making changes in their lives and these changes need to be noted, remembered and not forgotten unless the user chooses to forget/remove them. Data is Power!
If you would like to see this feature or a rendition of this add to EasySocial please vote for it here in the poll as well as at the voices page: http://stackideas.com/voices/easysocial/item/865
if you have questions, comments or other ideas related please post them so we can help bring this to reality.
Thanks,
James
Dynamic Fields are a field that allow duplication at a user level. For example, as a community administrator you might have a custom field for the user to select his/her spoken languages. To allow your users the ability to add multiple languages is ideal. A prime example of StackIdeas using this currently is the Multi Dropdown List. If you add one of these you will see an "Add" button which allows the user to add additional options to the field itself. This should be an optional feature across all field types.
Dynamic Field Groups this is essentially a group of fields that are replicate for the user to input additional information across several fields. An example of this would be a users Education or Work Experience. For Education you might want to collect data such as the users School attended, Years Attended, and Degree Program. Likewise with Work Experience. This allows your users to input multiple levels of information and thus your website becomes more robust.
Another key element to this is a search function that allows your users to input data into one field to search vs having to search across multiple fields. For example, I wouldn't want my users to search for several schools or even the same school by having to type Harvard University into an Education 1 field an Education 2 field, etc... They should input Harvard University in a single education search field and it parse all results whether dynamic or not.
Again, this will help build your communities with more information and changing information. Users are constantly making changes in their lives and these changes need to be noted, remembered and not forgotten unless the user chooses to forget/remove them. Data is Power!
If you would like to see this feature or a rendition of this add to EasySocial please vote for it here in the poll as well as at the voices page: http://stackideas.com/voices/easysocial/item/865
if you have questions, comments or other ideas related please post them so we can help bring this to reality.
Thanks,
James