Custom contact fields

Custom fields are the details your business needs that a standard contact record does not have — a gate code, equipment type, a start date, a budget. The account owner defines them once; everyone who can see a contact sees its values.

Defining fields

On the Contacts tab, the account owner chooses Custom fields. Each field has a name, a type and, if you like, a line of help text:

• Text — anything, up to 2,000 characters.
• Date — a calendar date.
• Choice from a list — one of the choices you set.
• Yes / No / Unknown.
• Number — with an optional unit, such as sq ft.
• Money — in the currency you set, with that currency’s decimals.

Two fields cannot share a name, ignoring capitals and accents. Use Move up and Move down to set the order they appear in. Every change — creating, renaming, retyping, retiring, deleting — is recorded in the Activity log with who made it and when.

Filling in values

Values are entered on each contact’s page under Custom fields. Team members who can manage leads or clients can edit them; those who can only view contacts see them read-only. A value that does not fit its field — a date that is not a real date, a choice not on the list — is refused with a message under that field. The Activity log records which fields changed, but never the values themselves.

Values versus columns

A field always exists on every contact page. Showing it as a column in the Contacts list is a separate choice — see Customising the contact list. Hiding a column deletes nothing.

Changing a field’s type

You can change a field’s type, or its list of choices, as long as every value already stored fits the new setting. If some do not, Kirk One tells you how many and changes nothing — values are never converted or cut short behind your back. Fix or clear those values first, or keep the current type.

Export and import

The Contacts export includes a column for each field, headed like Gate code [cf:gate-code]. The part in brackets is the field’s key: it is set when the field is created and never changes, even if you rename the field. Importing that file back fills the same fields; importing it into another workspace matches fields by name. See Importing contacts.

Retiring versus deleting

Retire hides a field from forms, columns and exports but keeps every stored value; the values stay readable on each contact page, and Restore brings the field back. Delete removes the field and every value stored in it, for every contact. It asks you to confirm, cannot be undone, and records how many values it removed.