About Notes

You can annotate a record or a collection of records by attaching one or more notes. This topic describes the types of notes. The Related Topics links point to other topics that explain how to create, view, and attach or detach notes.

Object and Class Notes

You can create these types of notes:

Notes for a single record (Object Notes): These notes are attached to the currently selected record. Object notes can be internal or external. You can create a note specifically for that record, or you can attach a reusable note.
Notes for all records in a collection (Class Notes): These notes are attached to every record in a collection. For example, if you attach a class note to one customer record, it is automatically attached to all customer records. Class notes can be internal or external. You can only attach reusable notes as class notes. Also, class notes do not print on reports.

You can attach multiple notes, of either type, to a record. Once you attach a note of any type to a record, all other users of the system can read the note.

When you attach a note, the status bar displays the word NOTES, and the Actions menu displays a check mark next to the Notes for Current option (for single-record notes) or next to the Notes for All option, for notes attached to the whole collection.

Note: Some forms use application-specific notes instead of the standard Object Notes and Class Notes. These notes are similar in purpose but different in use from the standard notes.

Reusable Notes

Reusable notes are defined on the System/User Notes form. You can create these notes once and attach them multiple times, either as object notes or class notes. There are two kinds of reusable notes:

User notes: Once created, a user note can be reused and attached to records only by the person who created the note. For example, if Sally creates a user note in the System/User Notes form, she can later view that note and attach it to other records. However, when Pete opens the form, he cannot see Sally's notes or attach them to his records.
User notes do not print on reports.
System notes: Once created, a system note is available for use by anyone else on the system. For example, if Joe creates a system note, both he and Jane can later view that note in the System/User Notes form. They can also both attach it to as many records as they want.
System notes can be printed on reports.

Internal/External Notes

All notes can also be classified as either external or internal notes. If you select the Internal check box for a note, the system tags it as an internal note. Otherwise, the system treats the note as an external note. This classification is used when printing notes in reports, as described below.

Printing Notes in Reports

Many reports and utilities allow you to specify what kinds of notes can be printed as part of the output. Sometimes the Print External Notes and Print Internal Notes options are used in conjunction with other note-printing options. If you do not select at least one of these options for note-printing options that require them, no notes print, no matter what other options you select. At the same time, if you have one or both of these options selected, but you do not also have another option selected, no notes print.

For example, suppose you are printing a report that allows you to print both customer notes and customer order notes, and you can elect to print internal notes, external notes, or both. Suppose you want to print only external customer notes on the report. In this case, you would select Print Customer Notes (but not Print Order Notes) and Print External Notes (but not Print Internal Notes. If you do not select both options (Print Customer Notes and Print Internal Notes), no notes are printed.

On forms where Print External Notes and Print Internal Notes are the only 'print notes' options, it depends on the form itself as to which notes the system prints.

User notes and class notes do not print on reports.