Use User Defined Fields (UDFs) for your MAT staff

You can now create and use Staff or Educational Institution User-Defined Fields (UDFs) on the MAT MIS itself, so your central team can record information about the staff with profiles on MAT sites or about the MAT. You can use the field:

• on the MAT only, or
• on the MAT and on your schools, using the push-down you use to roll UDFs out to schools.

If you do both, the UDFs page on the MAT MIS shows one list with MAT staff and school staff together.

The examples in this article use Staff UDFs, but everything works the same way for Educational Institution UDFs.

Permissions

• To set up the UDF, you need User Defined Fields Pushdown: Administer.
• Who can see and fill in the field for MAT staff depends on the Data regarding the area you choose (see Step 2). 
   
  • For example, if you choose Basic HR Details, then Basic HR Details: View All Group Staff lets users see the field, and Basic HR Details: Administer All Group Staff lets them fill it in. If you leave the area empty, the Group User Defined Fields permission is used instead.

Set up a UDF for your MAT

Step 1: Add the UDF

• Go to Administration > User Defined Fields
• Click Add User Defined Field
  
  
   
• Choose a UDF type (e.g. Short Text or Boolean), then choose Staff or Educational Institution. Enter a Field Name.
   

Step 2: Choose where the field is used

To set up the UDF for your MAT and your schools

• Under Institutions, choose the schools. Then, under Use on group, tick Use on group and choose a Data regarding area.

To set up the UDF for your MAT only. 

• Leave Institutions empty. Then tick Use on group and choose a Data regarding area.

For Staff UDFs, you can choose from several Data regarding areas. For Educational Institution UDFs, the only area is Group Details.

Click Create. The Used on group column shows which UDFs are used on the MAT MIS. The Institutions column shows which schools a UDF has been pushed down to.

See MAT and school staff in one list

Click a UDF's name to open its page. The table at the bottom lists every staff member the field applies to:

• MAT staff show the MAT's name in the Institution column.
• School staff show their school's name. This is only for fields pushed down to schools.

In this example, Shoe Size is used on the MAT and pushed down to Pams1. The table is sorted by Shoe Size, so MAT staff and Pams1 staff appear together in one list, with the shoe sizes listed for each.

You can click a row for a MAT staff member to add, change or delete the value of the field (e.g. the shoe size) straight from the list. 

You can click a row for a school staff member to see the value. You can't edit it here: school values are still entered by the school on its own site, exactly as before.

For a MAT-only UDF, the list only has MAT staff.

Fill in a UDF from a MAT staff profile

You can also fill in a UDF from a MAT staff member's profile. Go to Group Staff > Browse Staff > MAT Staff or use the search, open the staff member, and scroll to the User Defined Fields section. Click a field to add or change its value.

FAQ

Are values shared between the MAT and the school?

No. Values for MAT staff are entered on the MAT MIS, and values for school staff are entered on the school site. Values are never copied between the two. If someone works in both places, each profile has its own value.

Can I stop using a field on the MAT MIS?

Yes. Edit the UDF and untick Use on group. The field is hidden for MAT staff. If you tick Use on group again, the values entered earlier come back.

Can I use Student or Guardian UDFs on the MAT MIS?

No, only Staff and Educational Institution UDFs.
 

Further reading

• Roll out User Defined Fields (UDFs) from MAT MIS
• Using User Defined Fields (UDFs)