About contact fields
Your contact overview consists of all available data of your contacts. To display that information, we use contact fields or database fields. When you add people to your Flexmail account, you need to make sure you're adding an email address. Besides that, you can use other fields to store information in.
A field always consists of a field name, a field type and a placeholder.
In Flexmail we distinguish two types of database fields: default and custom fields.
Default fields
Every account has access to 5 default fields:
- Email address
- Name
- First name
- Language
- Source
Of the fields above, email address is the only required field for a contact to get added to Flexmail.
Custom fields
Would you like to store additional contact data in Flexmail besides the default fields above? Not to worry, you can create the fields you need yourself.
Field types
When creating a custom field you are expected to choose which type of field you want to add and provide a field name for that field. If you send emails in multiple languages, you can also translate these fields in those languages. Additional options might be needed depending on the type of field.
- Date
This field type only allows storing dates. Values are expected to be valid ISO-8601 dates (YYYY-MM-DD) when you import them from an external source. When a contact wants to fill out this field, they get access to a date picker. - Free text
The most generic field possible, it can store any value. - Multiple choice
With this field type you can define the available options from which the contact and/or user can choose one or multiple. An option consists of an option name (which is what contacts see when managing their data) and a value. The value is what will be shown in your export, what you'll segment on, ... The option value will be autogenerated from the option name (identical). Updating the option value is possible. All characters are allowed within the option name and the value, they cannot exceed 255 characters. It's possible to select one or multiple options as the default. That means that when a contact changes the content of this field, those options will be pre-selected. The order of the different options can also be changed. - Numeric
This field type only allows storing numbers.
The Field name of a field is what users and contacts will see when they are managing their data. All characters are allowed within the field name, it cannot exceed 50 characters. You choose the field name and field type yourself, but we will automatically generate the placeholder for you, using the field name as a base. The placeholder is more strict in what it allows. We limit it to only alphanumeric characters and underscores, it will be lowercase and it cannot exceed 50 characters.
All contact fields can be used for segmentation to create new target groups, to trigger specific automation scenarios or to personalise the content of your emails, using the placeholders. If you'd like to start your email with someone's first name, that would look like:
Hi #firstname#
Field name: First name
Placeholder: firstname
Field type: Free text
Translations
During your first steps in Flexmail, you have selected the languages in which you will be sending emails to your contacts. That means that you can only select these languages when creating a new form, and that when you allow your contact to change their own language, they can only choose from the languages you selected.
In these languages, your default and custom fields will also be displayed on your update page. Your default fields are automatically translated to your selected languages. But when you create your own fields, you will have to translate these fields yourself during the creation. You can also add those translations later on. Currently it is not mandatory to translate your own fields, but it is strongly recommended. If you then place your own field on your update page, that field will be displayed in the language of the contact who updates his profile.