!!Features of User Defined Fields
*End users can create these and no special knowledge of the system is required
*Date sensitive changes will carry forward the values 
*UserCalcs can read these values, but Workflow UserCalcs cannot access the NewValue of them
*Can be accessed using the [P2K_SMGETUDF] function by external report writers and by [P2K_SMPUTUDF] by stored procedures to set the value.
*Interface programs like [UEEF] and [UPPHF] can access these natively

!Points opposed to User Defined Fields
* The data is stored in an abstraction table and is not natively linked to the table it is related to.
* This abstraction has the potential, if there are a lot of user defined fields, to impact performance.

!!Setup and Use of a User Defined Field 
Use the [IMUF] screen to define the User Defined Field on the table you want the data related to.  Note that in a parent-child table relationship where there are date-sensitive children, the parent table is often not permitted to have user defined fields (as seen on [IMCD])

You may also want to decide on [User Defined Columns|USER DEFINED COLUMN] as your extension structure instead.