Recall that each contact is assigned attributes, called contact fields, that hold values such as their names, phone numbers and any other individual information you want to include. Contact fields are divided into two types, default fields and custom fields, and they can hold three types of values: Text, Number or Date & Time.

Note that only custom contact fields with the Date & Time type can be used in campaigns. See how to edit the field type of a custom contact field.

Creating Custom Contact Fields Manually

To create a custom contact field, go to Contacts in your account and click Fields.

This opens the Fields page:

The Fields page also shows how to refer to a field's value in a message or flow. For example, the value of the "Residence Hall" field is @fields.residence_hall.

To create a new field, click the New button in the top-right corner.

Give the contact field a name, such as "Dining Plan", and set a data type for what will be stored in that field. Fields need the correct data type (Text, Number or Date & Time) to store the data you'll be saving. When you're done, click Create.

Under Agent Access, choose what access your agents will have to this data: Hidden to hide it, View to let them see it, or Edit to let them change it.

After a contact field is created, you can make it appear at the top of each contact's page by starring it. In the example below, starring "Residence Hall" moves it to the top of the Fields page, under Featured.

Editing a Contact's Custom Fields

Custom fields are created from Fields on the Contacts page, but you edit a contact's values from the Fields panel on their profile page. Open a contact's profile page and you'll see their featured fields on the right. Check Show All to see the rest.

The panel lists the custom fields you've added to your account, along with this contact's value for each one. To change a value, type the new value into the field. Above, we've edited Maya Patel's "Residence Hall" field to "Harbor Hall".

Creating a Custom Contact Field in a Flow

You can create new custom contact fields or update existing ones in a flow using the Update Field action.

In the flow above, we ask contacts when their next meeting with their advisor is. The Wait for Response action saves their reply as "Meeting Date", and we then update the contact's "Next Advisor Meeting" field:

We set the field's value using @results.[result_name], here @results.meeting_date. The flow uses the same result again in the thank-you message that follows.

You can choose an existing field to update, or create a new field by typing its name (here, "Dorm Room") and pressing Return. The new field is created and appears in your contact fields list.

Note: A single contact field can store up to 640 characters.

For a more detailed guide to using this action in a flow, check out our article on how to add and update contact fields here.