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For example: A police department may have a custom data collection field titled 'Drugs'. That police department can then elect to create sub-menus that collect more detailed information when 'Drugs' is selected. The next logical sub-menu would be 'Drug type'. Once a drug type has been selected, a third level custom field called 'Cocaine type' or 'Heroin type' could collect even more detailed information.

The following is an example of a Police department's item submission form in the Tracker Products system. The 'Category' field has been established as a dropdown menu with selections including various types of items commonly collected by law enforcement agencies.

When ‘Drugs’ are selected, the user has no way of further categorizing the substance other than to use the 'Description' field, which may lead to inconsistent search results and categorized reporting in the future. There are currently no sub-menus for the 'Drugs' menu. Let's add them now.

1. Navigate to the 'Custom Fields' section. Click the Items tab. Click 'Category'. Click 'Drugs'. Click 'Add Sub-menu'.

2. You will be presented with a list of options to help you create your new sub-menu. For starters, let’s create a dropdown menu for 'Drug type' and establish several drug types that the user can choose from when he/she selects this category.

When you're done, click the Add custom field button. Your new sub-menu is now ready to collect information.

3. Create as many sub-menus as you want. In this case, the user may find it appropriate to create additional sub-menus to collect information on the substance's quantity, origination or grade. The image at right depicts the creation of a 'Drug quantity' sub-menu.

Now we can go back and review the resulting custom data collection fields. When 'Drugs' is selected in the 'Category' dropdown menu, three new sub-menu fields become available. The user now has the ability to enter the drug type, the unit responsible for confiscating it and the weight and/or quantity of the drugs.

Here is a screen shot with the ‘Drug Type’ dropdown menu selected. The user can choose from any of the drug types established in the system.

Creating sub-menus is extremely easy. Users can create as many of them as they feel necessary to build an efficient and streamlined tracking system that does exactly what it should.

The following screenshots are examples of custom fields and sub-menus created by Tracker Products customers.

With a little assistance from the Tracker Products support team, This customer was able to create custom data collection fields and sub-menus that track the collection, storage and movement of currency in their system. Each denomination is entered separately and the system automatically calculates the total amount.

Here's another police department's item submission form. In this screenshot, the 'Firearm' option has been selected in the 'Category' field. This user has elected to use text fields for the 'Make', 'Model', and 'Caliber' fields because there are thousands of possible selections and creating dropdown menus would be time consuming and inefficient. The 'Serial number' can be used as a better means of proper identification for firearms in this scenario.

This is an example of an item submission form created by a forensic analysis firm that tracks computers and other forms of digital media. They have elected to build a very advanced and elaborately customized system for the categorization of items in their possession. As you can see, the 'Hard drive' selection in the 'Category' field has a series of sub-menus for heightened levels of specificity.