How to create a custom field in the Hive project manager

If Hive is your project management tool of choice, you’ll want to know how to create custom fields for your cards. Discover how easy it is.

Hive may not be as well-known project management tool as say Trello, but it should be on the radar for people managing small to medium sized projects. While it takes some app additions to get Hive up and running for more complicated projects, the platform is surprisingly robust even if you use the free option.

SEE: Hiring Package: Project Manager (Tech Republic Premium)

One thing that makes Hive work well for larger, more complex projects is the ability to create custom map fields. The tool already includes many of the fields most commonly used for project management data, but sometimes your team needs more options for specific project functions and features. When that happens, you’ll be happy with the ability to add a custom field. Let me show you how.

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What is hive?

Hive is a cloud-based project management solution that often bills itself as a productivity platform for collaboration and task management.

SEE: Best free and paid Smartsheet alternative project management tools (TechRepublic)

Hive offers views such as Status, Team, Label, Calendar, Gantt, and Table. Aside from Gantt and Table, the views are all highly kanban-oriented and help users manage project tasks well. You can create as many projects as you need, install loads of apps to extend the feature set, keep notes, use filters, and more.

Out of the box, Hive offers the following field options for its cards:

• Name.
• Description.
• Subactions.
• Labels.
• Attachments.
• Notes.
• Comments.
• Transferee.
• Date.
• Status.

That’s a pretty complete list, but there will be times when you need more custom configurations.

Hive’s pre-built custom fields include Design Link, GitHub Link, Pull Request Link, Working Branch Link, Copy Link, and Assets Link.

You can also create your own custom fields for action cards or projects, and custom fields can follow any of these standard formats: selections, text field, users, date, project, formula, or number.

What you need to create a Hive custom field

All you need to create a Hive custom field is a valid Hive account. You can use a free or paid plan, as custom fields are available for both. With that account in hand, let’s add a custom field.

Add a custom field

The first thing you need to do is log into your Hive account. After logging in, select the project you want to work on.

On the project page (Image A), click More in the top right corner.

Image A

From the drop-down list, select More Custom Fields (Figure B).

Figure B

In the resulting popup (Figure C), click Create New Custom Field.

Figure C

A second popup appears (Figure D) where you can add a name, select the kind of field you want and then select the type.

Figure D

If this field is used within cards, make sure you select Action Card as the field type. Once you’ve created all the custom fields you need, click outside the popups.

You are now ready to use the new fields. As you can see (Figures E), I created a custom Genre field that allows me to select from a list of genres I’ve added to the field.

Figures E

Customize your project management toolset

If you use a project management tool long enough, you’ll find yourself needing to add custom fields to your cards. This feature should be considered a must-have because otherwise the platform you use will end up being too restrictive.

SEE: The complete project management bundle (TechRepublic Academy)

Hive makes it really easy to add custom fields for your cards. Try this feature and see if it doesn’t convince you to use Hive for project management.

Read more: The 10 best project management software and tools (TechRepublic)

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