Phase 3 - Session 4 Homework: On-Your-Own Topics Follow
Please review these On-Your-Own Topics and mark the associated GUIDEcx task as Complete before Session 5.
We highly recommend having Midnight open while reviewing the material and locating each topic within your system. Becoming familiar with the navigation, screens, and settings ahead of time will help you gain a better understanding of the platform and make future implementation sessions more productive.
Tip: As you review these topics, make note of any questions and add them to the Items to Discuss section of the related GUIDEcx task so they can be addressed during a future implementation session if needed.
Admin → Print → Print Product Templates
Users can select a Project Type ID or Project Type hyperlink to view and modify the configuration associated with a template.
To create a new Print Product Template, select Add Print Product Template from the QuickLinks dropdown.
Midnight allows you to create an unlimited number of Print Product Templates, making Print Template Groups a valuable tool for organizing similar products and improving usability. By grouping templates into logical categories, users can more easily locate and select the appropriate template when creating estimates in the Print Calculator.
For detailed instructions on creating and managing template groups, see How to Create a Print Template Group.
Add New Print Product Templates Within a Print Item
You can save a new Print Product Template directly from within a print item, allowing commonly produced products to be reused without rebuilding specifications each time.
- Open or create a print item and configure all product specifications, including size, stock, colors, imposition, etc.
- Select Template Name.
- Choose Add New Product.
- Enter a descriptive template name and save the template.
- The template will be added to your Print Product Templates and can be selected on future estimates and orders.
Best Practice: Use a clear naming convention that identifies the production method, size, colors, and stock. For example:
- Digital Postcards <10m 9 x 6 4/4, 100# MacGregor Gloss Cover, 13 x 19
- Offset Flyer 8.5 x 11 4/4, 80# Hannoart Silk Text, 19 x 25
- Offset Booklet 8.5 x 11 16-Page Self Cover 4/4, 100# MacGregor Gloss Text, 28 x 40
Consistent naming makes templates easier to locate and helps ensure pricing and production settings remain standardized across all estimates. Because Print Product Templates are shared resources, a standardized naming convention allows all Midnight users to quickly identify, select, and reuse the correct template, reducing duplicate template creation and promoting consistent estimating and production practices throughout the organization.
Admin → User Defined Fields
The User Defined Fields screen lists the custom fields available for each Midnight module.
User-Defined Fields (UDFs) allow you to create custom fields within Midnight to capture information that is specific to your organization's workflow. UDFs can be used to enter, search, filter, and report on data that is not available as a standard system field.
Because UDFs are available throughout Midnight, they provide a flexible way to track additional customer, estimate, order, inventory, and production information required by your business.
IIMPORTANT: Once a User Defined Field (UDF) has been created and saved, the Field Type cannot be changed. This restriction exists to preserve the integrity of historical data already stored within the field.
The following properties can still be modified after the UDF has been created: User Defined Field Label, Input Mask, and Field Size.
However, changes to these properties should be made carefully. Updated labels, input masks, and field sizes are applied to both existing and future records that utilize the User Defined Field. As a result, historical orders may display the updated field label rather than the original label that was in place when the order was created.
Additionally, when older orders are copied, the User Defined Field may contain historical data that no longer aligns with the updated label or intended purpose of the field. This can create confusion for users reviewing historical or copied orders.
For this reason, it is recommended that User Defined Fields be planned carefully before implementation and that significant changes be evaluated for their potential impact on historical records. Whenever possible, it is best to leave existing User Defined Fields unchanged and create a new UDF instead. This approach preserves historical accuracy while ensuring future orders utilize the new field configuration.
Configuring a User-Defined Field
To modify an existing UDF:
- Navigate to Admin > User Defined Fields.
- Select the appropriate module.
- Click the Edit icon for the User-Defined Field you want to modify.
- Configure the desired field settings.
- Save your changes.
The following fields are available:
Field Size: For fields with a Text data type, the maximum field length is 255 characters. This setting controls how much information users can enter into the field.
Copy: Available for Estimate and Order UDFs. When enabled, the UDF value is copied when an estimate or order is duplicated.
Export: Available for Estimate and Order UDFs. When enabled, data entered in an Estimate UDF can be exported to the corresponding Order UDF when the estimate is converted to an order.
Active: Controls whether the User-Defined Field is available for use within the selected module.
Field Types and Input Masks
Each User-Defined Field can be assigned a specific Field Type, which determines how users enter data.
When the field type is set to Text, you can optionally define an Input Mask to limit users to a predefined list of selections.
Use the following format when configuring an input mask:
- Begin the list with a character.
- Separate each option with a pipe (
|) character. - End the list with a (
>) character. - Do not include spaces between options unless a space is intended to be part of the value.
Example: Yes/No Selection: <Y|N>
When users click into a UDF configured with an input mask, a popup selection list appears containing the available choices. Users can select from the predefined options rather than manually entering values.
Job Costing Overview
Midnight MIS YouTube Video: Job Costing
Scheduling & Dynamic Job Board Overview
Midnight MIS YouTube Video: Scheduling & Dynamic Job Board
Shopfloor Data Collection Overview
Midnight MIS YouTube Video: Shop Floor Data Collection
Midnight Webinar: Shopfloor Data Collection - Barcode Scanning
CRM → Contract Pricing
Midnight Knowledge Base Article: Creating Contract Pricing
CRM → Customer Specific Pricing
The Pricing tab allows organizations to establish customer-specific pricing for individual services. These pricing overrides can be used to automatically apply negotiated rates, minimum charges, and pricing exceptions when creating Estimates and Orders for a specific customer.
Customer-Specific Pricing is commonly used when a customer receives special pricing that differs from your standard service pricing. This eliminates the need to manually adjust pricing on every estimate and helps ensure pricing consistency across all jobs for that customer.
Once configured, the customer-specific pricing is automatically applied when the associated service is added to an Estimate or Order for that customer.
Available Fields
- Service Name: The service that the customer-specific pricing applies to. Only services configured within Standard Services can be assigned customer-specific pricing.
- Service Base Price: Displays the standard base price currently configured for the service.
- Service Minimum Price: Displays the standard minimum charge configured for the service.
- Rate: The customer-specific rate that will be used when the service is added to an Estimate or Order for this customer. The Rate overrides the standard service price.
- Discount: The discount percentage applied to the service.
- Minimum Price: The customer-specific minimum charge that will be applied for the service. This value overrides the standard minimum price configured in Standard Services.
Apply Discount / All Services
This button applies the percentage entered in the Percent Discount field to every service currently displayed on the customer's Pricing tab. It provides a quick way to establish a consistent discount across multiple services without manually updating each pricing record individually.
Load All Services
This button loads all active Standard Services into the Pricing tab for the selected customer. Once loaded, users can review and modify rates, discounts, and minimum prices on a service-by-service basis. This is particularly useful when setting up customer-specific pricing for a new customer or when configuring pricing across a large number of services.
Copy Pricing to Children
This button copies all customer-specific pricing records from the current customer to any associated child customer accounts. This function is useful when a parent company and its branch locations, divisions, franchises, or subsidiary companies share the same pricing structure. The number shown in parentheses indicates how many child customer records are available to receive the pricing information.
Admin → CRM → Activity Type
CRM Activity Types are used to categorize activities recorded within the CRM. Activity Types help organizations track and report on customer interactions, sales efforts, follow-ups, meetings, and other relationship management activities.
When creating a new Activity Type, you must select a Status Code. The Status Code determines how the activity behaves within the CRM and how it is tracked by users.
The following Status Codes are available:
- Complete: Used for activities that are considered finished immediately upon entry. These activities are informational and do not require additional follow-up.
- Pending: Used for activities that require future action or follow-up. Pending activities remain open until they are completed or updated.
- Result: Used to record the outcome or result of a completed activity, such as the result of a sales call, meeting, proposal, or follow-up action.
Admin → CRM → Contact Types
Contact Types are used to classify contacts associated with customers, prospects, vendors, and other records within the CRM.
Contact Types help identify a contact's role within an organization and make it easier to organize and search contact records.
Admin → CRM → Customer Source
Path: Admin → CRM → Customer Source
Customer Sources identify how a customer or prospect was acquired. Tracking Customer Sources allows organizations to evaluate marketing efforts, identify lead generation opportunities, and analyze sales effectiveness.
Customer Source is selectable within the Detail tab of a Customer record.