Collection Configs

Payload Collections are defined through configs of their own, and you can define as many as your application needs. Each Collection will scaffold a MongoDB collection automatically based on fields that you define.

It's often best practice to write your Collections in separate files and then import them into the main Payload config.

* An asterisk denotes that a property is required.

Simple collection example

import { CollectionConfig } from 'payload/types';

const Orders: CollectionConfig = {
    slug: 'orders',
    fields: [
        {
            name: 'total',
            type: 'number',
            required: true,
        },
        {
            name: 'placedBy',
            type: 'relationship',
            relationTo: 'customers',
            required: true,
        }
    ]
};

More collection config examples

You can find an assortment of example collection configs in the Public Demo source code on GitHub.

You can customize the way that the Admin panel behaves on a collection-by-collection basis by defining the admin property on a collection's config.

Collection admin options can accept a preview function that will be used to generate a link pointing to the frontend of your app to preview data.

If the function is specified, a Preview button will automatically appear in the corresponding collection's Edit view. Clicking the Preview button will link to the URL that is generated by the function.

The preview function accepts two arguments:

1. The document being edited
2. An options object, containing locale and token properties. The token is the currently logged-in user's JWT.

Example collection with preview function:

import { CollectionConfig } from 'payload/types';

const Posts: CollectionConfig = {
    slug: 'posts',
    fields: [
        {
            name: 'slug',
            type: 'text',
            required: true,
        },
    ],
    admin: {
        preview: (doc, { locale }) => {
            if (doc?.slug) {
                return `https://bigbird.com/preview/posts/${doc.slug}?locale=${locale}`;
            }

            return null;
        },
    },
};

You can specify extremely granular access control (what users can do with documents in a collection) on a collection by collection basis. To learn more, go to the Access Control docs.

Hooks are a powerful way to extend collection functionality and execute your own logic, and can be defined on a collection by collection basis. To learn more, go to the Hooks documentation.

Collections support all field types that Payload has to offer—including simple fields like text and checkboxes all the way to more complicated layout-building field groups like Blocks. Click here to learn more about field types.

List Searchable Fields

In the List view, there is a "search" box that allows you to quickly find a document with a search. By default, it searches on the ID field. If you have admin.useAsTitle defined, the list search will use that field. However, you can define more than one field to search to make it easier on your admin editors to find the data they need.

For example, let's say you have a Posts collection with title, metaDescription, and tags fields - and you want all three of those fields to be searchable in the List view. You can simply add admin.listSearchableFields: ['title', 'metaDescription', 'tags'] - and the admin UI will automatically search on those three fields plus the ID field.

You can import collection types as follows:

import { CollectionConfig } from 'payload/types';

// This is the type used for incoming collection configs.
// Only the bare minimum properties are marked as required.

import { SanitizedCollectionConfig } from 'payload/types';

// This is the type used after an incoming collection config is fully sanitized.
// Generally, this is only used internally by Payload.