Add phone field to opportunity page layout?

Question

Is it possible to add a phone field to the Opportunity Page Layout?

Screenshot of me trying. No phone fields available - http://screencast.com/t/Uj4lgBEWTcS​

I don't think that it is possible. I was asked to add it, so I want to make sure that I can't before I tell the client this. I have looked in the Salesforce forums, and googled extensively.

According to my understanding, only contacts and leads can have a phone number. Of course we can relate a contact to the opportunity but AFAIK, it is not possible to add a phone number directly to the opportunity object. Is this correct?

Answer 1

It's not exactly clear what you're asking for, but here's some tips anyway.

First, there isn't a native phone field on the opportunity, so that's not surprising there is nothing to add.

Second, there is a field type, "Phone", which can be used for custom fields, and is used by a number of standard fields, primarily on the Contact and Account objects. You can create one on the opportunity and call it whatever you like. There is likely some extra magic with that field type, most likely with soft phones and call center telephony integration. Unfortunately the docs don't say much

Phone fields contain phone numbers, which can include alphabetic characters. Client applications are responsible for phone number formatting.

From API Docs

Third, if you want to display a particular phone field from a related object on the Opportunity page layout you can likely create a formula field to do that. For example, you can create a formula field for the account's phone, Account.Phone, and then add that to the page layout.

Finally, if you've created a phone field but aren't seeing it's probably a field level security issue. Make sure the field is visible to your profile.