How to add, edit, and manage custom (non-catalog) products in your project schedule
Written by Patricia Causey · Updated March 19, 2026
Update:This article replaces the previous “Adding Placeholder Products to Your Schedules.” The feature has been renamed — Placeholder Products are now called Custom Products everywhere in Acelab.
A Custom Product is any product that is not yet in the Acelab catalog. Use Custom Products as stand-ins when a product hasn’t been specified yet, or to track proprietary and non-catalog items alongside your catalog products. You can now add Acelab field values directly to Custom Products, keeping your schedule complete and consistent.
Open your project schedule and click the Add Product button.
Select Add Custom Product from the dropdown. The Add Custom Product modal will open.
Populate the required fields, which is the Product Category. For fields such as Manufacturer and Product Name, search for a manufacturer and product using the fields. If you cannot find the manufacturer or product, add a new one. Optionally add a description, image, or URL.
Click Add Product. The Custom Product appears in your schedule.
Custom Products support all Acelab field types — the same fields you see on catalog products. Values are stored at the project level, so each project can have different values for the same Custom Product.Supported field types:
If you want a Custom Product to be available across all your firm’s projects, you can save it to your Firm Library. Once saved to the Firm Library, it becomes a Custom Company Product — see the Custom Company Products article for details.
To add a Custom Product to the Firm Library from a project schedule:
At product’s hero image in the schedule, click the + button. A tooltip will confirm Add to Firm Library.
The product is added to the Firm Library. The + icon is replaced by your firm’s company logo, indicating the product is now a Custom Company Product.
To learn more about Custom Company Product, click here.
Note:Only Company Admins, Creators, and Editors can add products to the Firm Library. Viewers and external collaborators will see a disabled state with the tooltip “Permission Required – You can’t add products to the Firm Library.”
Duplicating a Custom Product copies all Acelab field values to the new entry. The duplicate is a fully independent product — it has no link to the original.
If the product becomes available in the Acelab catalog, you can replace the Custom Product with the real listing. A confirmation modal will appear before any changes are made.When you confirm the replacement, all custom Acelab field values are removed, and the catalog product’s fields populate immediately. This action cannot be undone.