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Decision

New collection vs new field

Add a field when the fact only describes the entry it sits on. Create a collection when the thing has facts of its own, when several entries point at the same one, or when it needs its own life: stages, publishing, bookings, or automations that fire when one is created.

Add a field when the fact only describes the entry it sits on. Create a collection when the thing has facts of its own, when several entries point at the same one, or when it needs its own life: stages, publishing, bookings, or automations that fire when one is created.

Requirements

A role that can edit the business's structure: create collections and add fields.

The fork

A real estate brokerage tracks listings. Showings come up early: when was the property shown, to whom, and how did it go. That can live on the listing as a field, such as a last-showing date, or it can become its own collection, Showings, with one entry per visit that points back at the listing. Both work. They cost different things.

Option 1: a new field

What it is. One more slot on every entry in an existing collection. The value belongs to that entry and nothing else.

When to pick it.

  • The fact describes the entry: a listing's asking price, a candidate's availability date.
  • You only need the latest value, not a history.
  • A short, fixed set of choices covers it. An option field with several values allowed handles tags and categories.
  • Several values of the same kind belong to the entry, such as a contact's emails or phone numbers. Group fields hold them without a separate collection.

What it costs.

  • A field cannot carry facts of its own. A last-showing date cannot also record who attended.
  • The same value typed on many entries drifts. One agent writes a buyer's name one way, another writes it differently, and the two no longer match.
  • A field's type is fixed once it is created. Changing course later means archiving the field and moving the data into a new one.

Option 2: a new collection

What it is. A new kind of thing in the business, with its own entries and its own fields, connected to other collections through a reference or multi-reference (elsewhere: lookup, linked record).

When to pick it.

  • The thing has more than one fact about it. A showing has a date, a buyer, an agent, and an outcome.
  • Several entries point at the same one. Many contacts belong to one company; that company is an entry, not a name typed on each contact.
  • You need to count or sum across it. A rollup on the listing can count its showings only if showings are entries. See Rollup vs lookup.
  • It moves through stages of its own. Stages belong to a collection; see Stages vs option field vs status.
  • Something should happen when one is created. Automation triggers such as entry created, field changed, or stage changed are set per collection.
  • It has its own publishing. Every collection carries status and publishing dates, and a connected website is granted access collection by collection. See How collections power a site.
  • People book it. Bookability is switched on for a collection; see Make a collection bookable.

What it costs.

  • One more structure to maintain: its fields, its views, and the references that tie it to the rest.
  • Entering one fact now means creating an entry and linking it, not filling in a slot.

Changing your mind later

Starting with a field and moving to a collection is common: the field was enough until the thing grew facts of its own. The move is a migration, not a setting. You create the collection, create one entry per distinct value, point the original entries at them with a reference, and archive the old field. The earlier you notice a field turning into a thing, the smaller that migration is.

Notes and limitations

  • A reference points at another collection, never at its own. For a hierarchy inside one collection, such as a parent company and its subsidiaries, use a parent field.
  • An option field suits a short list that changes rarely. When the options start needing descriptions, owners, or statuses, they have become entries.
  • A new collection already has built-in fields, such as name, slug, status, publishing dates, and location. You add only what is specific to it.

Rule of thumb

If the thing has facts of its own, or more than one entry points at it, make it a collection. If it only describes the entry it sits on, make it a field.

Create a collection and Add or change a field cover the steps for each option.

Frequently asked questions

Should tags be a field or a collection?
A field, as long as a tag is only a label. An option field with several values allowed covers it. Make tags a collection only when each tag needs facts of its own, such as an owner or a description.
Can I turn a field into a collection later?
Yes, as a migration: create the collection, create an entry per distinct value, point the original entries at them with a reference, then archive the old field.
Can a collection reference itself?
No. A reference always points at another collection. For a hierarchy inside one collection, use a parent field.
Does a new collection start empty?
It starts with built-in fields, including name, slug, status, publishing dates, and location. You add the fields specific to it.