Creating custom contact fields

Christy Cook Updated by Christy Cook

To create new custom fields, from the DailyStory navigation bar, select Contacts > Manage Fields from the Contacts drop-down menu.

On the Custom Contact Fields box, select Add field. The page displays the Add custom field box. Enter the required information to create a new custom contact field. 

Note: On the Custom Contact Fields box, you can update any of the available fields. Select a field and the Update custom field box will be displayed. You can then proceed to updating the field as you prefer. Activities related to editing and removing fields are logged in the Audit Log.

To understand the fiels in this box, refer to the following section.

Understanding the custom field options

Use the following table to understand what information is required for each option in the box.

Option name

Action

Field name

Enter the name of the new custom field.

Field data type

Select the corresponding data type of the new custom field from the drop-down list. 

  • Text — select if the value for the custom field is in text form. 
  • Number — select if the value for the custom field is in number form.
  • Decimal — select if the value for the custom field is in decimal form.
  • Date/Time — select if the value for the custom field is date or time.
  • Yes or No — select if the value for the custom field is either yes or no.
  • True or False — select if the value for the custom field is either true or false.
  • Text Array — select if the value for the custom field is multiple sets of text, separated by a semi-colon. This data type is primarily used for indexed lists of content, such as a list of membership types.

Pick list

This is an optional option that enables you to provide a pre-populated list of options for your custom field when you set Text or Text Array as its data type. You can still manually and freely add any value to the field even if a Pick list is enabled.

In the NAME box, enter the name of the option you want to add, followed by its option description in the corresponding VALUE box. Add as many options as you prefer. 

For an example with this configuration, refer to Sample custom field configuration.

Note: This feature only works when Text and Text Array is the assigned data type for the custom field. You can still configure Pick list options for other data types but they will not display or be available in live forms in DailyStory.

Include in export

Check this box if you want to include the custom field when you export contacts data.

Index field

Check this box if you want to index the custom field. This option enables you to use this custom field as a filter for when you’re searching for contacts.

Note: The only time you can set the field to be Indexed (searchable) is when it's created.

Handling Special Codes

When contact field data is imported the default format is title casing. This ensures that data, when imported, is formatted in a friendly manner. For example, "gold members" would become "Gold Members".

However, in some cases contact field data should not be formatted, such as when custom codes are used. Contact fields with "_code" appended to the field name will not be title cased. For example, "2021-DISCOUNT" would remain in all caps.

When custom contact field data is populated through a sync service, such as MINDBODY ONLINE, the logic for how to handling casing of data is handled within the sync service.

Using Custom Contact Fields

Custom contact fields may be used for a variety of purposes:

  • Data from sync - customer data brought over from a sync service such as Salesforce.com.
  • Imported data - customer data appended to contact records when importing customer data.

Examples may include:

  • Products - list of products the customer has
  • Territory - territory this customer belongs to
  • Date Purchased - custom dates, such as when a customer last purchased
  • Product categories - categories the of product the customer purchased
  • Total Spent - total amount the custom has spent in their lifetime

Selecting the appropriate data type for your custom field is important. For example, a Date/Time field is used when working with dates whereas a Text Array field is used when working with a list, such as product categories.

When to Index a field

A custom contact field should be "indexed" when the field is used to build segments or necessary for search. Indexed fields such as Text and Text Array should be indexed when the values are used for segmentation, such as product categories where you want to select contacts on their product category.

Date/Time fields should be indexed when you want to find contacts within a range of dates. Number and Decimal fields should be indexed when you want to find contacts based on a numeric value, such as "Purchased more than $100".

Generally speaking, Yes/No and True/False fields are not good candidates for indexing.

Example of field indexing

Given a list of contacts that you want to manage roles the contacts are in, such as CEO, CFO, Decision Maker. You may first create 3 custom contact fields for each as a Yes/No field. However, a better option would be to create a single Text Array field called "Role". This way a contact could have zero or more roles and as future roles were added no new contact fields would need to be created.

How did we do?

Accessing the custom contact fields

Sample custom field configuration

Contact