What Is Form Personalization?
Also known as: personalization, SyteLine personalizations, form customization
Definition
Form personalization in SyteLine is the ability to modify a form's appearance and behavior - hiding fields, relabeling, reordering, setting defaults - at user, group, or site level, stored as a layer above the delivered form so the base object is never altered.
Form Personalization Explained
SyteLine's form architecture is layered. Infor ships a base form. Above it sit customization layers applied in a defined precedence order - typically site or configuration level, then group, then individual user. When the client renders a form it merges the base with every applicable layer, so a purchasing clerk and a controller can open the same object and see different fields, labels, and defaults, all without a code change and without duplicating the form.
What you can do at the personalization level includes hiding and showing controls, changing captions, reordering tab sequence, setting default values, marking fields required or read-only, adding simple scripts in some contexts, and saving grid column layouts and filters. Heavier changes - new IDO properties, new database columns, server-side logic - are customization work that belongs in a named layer maintained by a developer, not something an end user should be doing on a Tuesday afternoon.
The upgrade implication is the reason this architecture exists. Because Infor replaces the base form and your layers replay on top, a personalization that hides a field survives a version change untouched unless Infor removed that field. Conflicts are reported rather than silently lost. This is materially better than the alter-the-source approach used by some ERP platforms, where every upgrade means a manual merge of every modified screen.
The governance risk is sprawl. Without policy, installations accumulate thousands of user-level personalizations, many created accidentally, some hiding fields that later become mandatory for a new process. A sensible standard is to allow user-level personalization for layout and filters only, push anything with business meaning to group or site level where it is documented and owned, and run an inventory of personalization layers before every upgrade.
Why It Matters
- Role-appropriate screens measurably improve data quality by removing fields a given user should never populate.
- Layered personalization survives upgrades, unlike source-level screen modifications in older ERP architectures.
- Uncontrolled user-level personalizations become invisible support tickets when someone hides a field a new process requires.
- Knowing the layer precedence order is essential to troubleshooting "the field is missing for one user only" reports.
In Practice
When a single user reports that a field has vanished, check personalization layers in precedence order before investigating security. In practice the majority of these tickets are a user-level personalization created by an accidental drag, not a permissions change - resolving them takes two minutes once you know where to look.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between personalization and customization in SyteLine?
Personalization is user- or group-level layout and behavior change made through the client - hiding fields, relabeling, reordering, saving grid layouts. Customization is developer-level work in a managed form layer or IDO extension: new properties, new logic, new database objects. Personalization needs no release process; customization needs source control, testing, and an upgrade impact assessment.
Should end users be allowed to personalize forms?
Allow it for layout, column widths, grid filters, and saved searches - those genuinely improve productivity and carry no business risk. Restrict hiding fields, changing defaults, and marking fields required to group or site level where the change is documented and owned. Ungoverned field-level personalization is a recurring source of data quality problems and hard-to-diagnose support tickets.
Related Terms
Mongoose Framework
Mongoose is Infor's metadata-driven application development framework that SyteLine and CloudSuite Industrial are built on. It renders forms, exposes data through IDOs, runs an event system, and lets customers extend or build applications without altering delivered source code.
FormSync
FormSync in SyteLine is the Mongoose capability that keeps multiple open forms synchronized on the same record context, so moving to a different order or item in one form automatically refreshes the related forms to show data for that same record.
IDO (Intelligent Data Object)
An IDO (Intelligent Data Object) is the middle-tier business object in SyteLine and the Mongoose framework that exposes database tables as named properties, methods, and collections, so forms, mobile apps, and REST clients all read and write data through one governed layer.
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