Change Doctype dynamically

I want to implement in erpnext a GTD (get things done) implementation. For this it’s neccessary to change doctypes on the fly. Because of the doctype implementation i think it should be possible to implement.

Simple GTD usecase example:
I have the following doctypes

  • Inbox
    Here i want to collect all ideas, notices all what get into my brain

Steps

  1. Collect Ideas, notices, todos etc. in Inbox
  2. Go through the list and decide which type the entry should be (i.e. notice , todo , project etc.)
  3. Change the item to the desired type

Nice to have features

  • Drag & Drop doctype changing
    Ideally, doctype can be changed by drag & drop them to the specific table (something like notion.io)
  • Reuse field datas with same fieldname (i.e. inbox has a field with type & todo has a field with type)
    if they could matched by field type, it would be nice if the data can be reused by new doctype

I hope the description is clearly enough

I allready ask Change Doctype · Issue #29226 · frappe/erpnext · GitHub here they say it’s possible with by default with the frappe framework, does anybody have an idea how to implement?

regards and thanks

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does nobody have an idea how to implement them with the onboarding features? (on github they say its possible)

try dynamic link

When you say “Change doctype”, do you mean that you want to convert a document from one doctype to another? That’s not really part of Frappe’s design philosophy, though you could probably hack it together with scripts.

An approach more in keeping with Frappe’s design principles, on the other hand, would be to treat all GTD-types as variations on a single doctype, with different sorts of metadata hidden and revealed as the type changed. FWIW, this is how notion works.

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hey, thanks for your responses.

What i mean is simply the following use case:
I want an global inbox, where i add notes, todos etc. (everything that comes in my mind), this is needet because of the many things i need to do, to plan etc. etc.

  1. Capture Informations
    add todos, notes to inbox. Goal is to make the brain empty!

  2. Clarify
    process the captured informations from step 1. decide what kind of type the respective inbox entry is (what i need to do with the information, in future)
    i.e.: is it

    • action able?
      then move them to the todo list (if multi tasks needet, make a project)
      • reference material?
        i.e. informations i only need to take a look if needet. tag them and hold them in list
      • an ressource what i need for a project or something else?
        i.e. make a wiki with the informations to take a look if needet
      • should i remind me to a later time about the informations?
        make a reminder to the specific entry
  3. organize
    here comes the actions, we need to put everything on its place. i.e. move the entry to

    • task list
    • delegate
    • calendar (to remind yourself)
    • wiki (move them to your wiki)

and more steps over, but the really magic should happen here in 3. organize, at this step i need to change the doctype, below i make a little overview where i need to move the gtd inbox entries.

Typically i need to move the gtd inbox entries to (change doc-type, ideally reuse field informations with same field name)

  • task
  • project
  • project template
  • goals (i have an OKR Module created see @OKR)
  • others

there can be much much more (i.e. an quotes list, content-hub, knowledge hub, ressource tables, template table etc. etc.)

In short the gtd inbox list is only an generall inbox where we track all informations which we hold in mind.

What i expected / what i want?
Ideally (and thats what the developers described on github), i want to change the doctype via drag and drop (to make it as efficient as possible), eventually via kanban board? otherswise its also ok to change the doctype via “select”?

I hope i could make it a little bit clearer.

regards, daniel

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Hi Daniel,

You can do what you’re describing in Frappe, though I’m not sure the UX/interface is really ideal for it. Converting documents from one doctype to another, however, seems like an unnecessarily messy complexity that goes against Frappe’s design philosophy. None of the people responding to you on github are suggesting that you do it that way.

Thanks for your fast response. If you handle much companies, area and different projects, it’s a pretty simple and effective way to handle this workaround with the gtd method. For me it was a game changer to handle so much informations in all ways (no matter what kind of information it is). It makes processing all the informations pretty fast, in my opinion.

Thanks for your ideas, i will give it a try :slight_smile:

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